Folks, this is tremendous news and potentially a really significant boost to
the survival chances of the Mallee emu-wren, as when Sarah Brown completed
her PhD a few years ago she was unable to locate any populations outside of
the Murray-Sunset / Hattah-Kulkyne complex, as it was generally believed the
populations in Ngarkat had been decimated by the fires in the early 2000s.
Since she also found they had very poor rates of dispersal, to find a
population here really is wonderful news as just maybe a small cryptic
population has been hanging on in a place no one had expected to find them.
I would just like to add though: can we please not have a mad rush of
twitchers going looking for them in this place, at least and until someone
has been able to have a quiet look and see how many there are and how viable
this population is? This is one of our most vulnerable bird species, as the
MS/HK population is the last stronghold, and it could be wiped out overnight
by a big fire in the wrong place. This new population has the chance to
change the picture for this species' survival, so please can we not muck it
up until we know how safe it is in this new location...
Yours in stipiturid sincerity,
Ross Macfarlane
-----Original Message-----
From: martin cachard
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 8:47 AM
To: Tim Dolby ;
Subject: Mallee Emu-wren at Wyperfeld
hey Tim,
that's such wonderful news!!
many moons ago I stumbled upon a family party of Mallee Emu-Wrens at Big
Billy Bore, further west in the northern Big Desert in the early 1980's... I
was in the area looking for Red-lored Whistlers.
the habitat was very thick Broombrush-heath with very sparse small patches
of spinifex, so it seems they don't mind sparse spinifex as a habitat
preference...
i'm not sure how long it's been since they have been recorded in the Big
Desert.
cheers,
martin cachard,
cairns
From:
To:
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 06:38:17 +0000
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Mallee Emu-wren at Wyperfeld
Hi all,
If anyone's heading to Wyperfeld National Park (Vic), Matthew Crawford has
just photographed a family of Mallee Emu-wren along the Discovery Walk,
see http://www.eremaea.com. Remarkably he found the birds in an area of
open tea-tree woodland - although there are some stands of triodia nearby,
he was some distance from significant area of triodia. Despite extensive
previous surveys of Wyperfeld there's have been very reports of Mallee
Emu-wren, and their presence along the Discovery Walk seems to me to be
new and remarkable. In fact when I first heard about it I’d dismissed as
miss-ID’d eclipsed Splendid or Variegated Fairy-wren. So I’m currently
eating humble pie! Why are they there now? Migration, population
expansion, or perhaps displacement due to fires?
Cheers,
Tim
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