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Dick Schodde presented the Bird-of-the-Month talk on Harriers. Dick concentrated his talk on how to tell Spotted and Swamp Harriers apart from each other and other birds of prey. Harriers differ from other medium size birds of prey by either: flying with their wings elevated above their body while hunting or hunting a few metres above the ground in open spaces.
How do you tell a Spotted from a Swamp? According to Dick there are two main ways: the places they hunt and their plumage. Spotted's hunt in dry inland areas, Swamp's hunt in wet, swampy grass plains in Eastern Australia. The distinctive features of the plumage of a Spotted are the black-tipped wings, chestnut front and pale grey back. The Swamp has a distinctive white rump and dark brown plumage.
Our main speaker for the night was Henry Nix who gave a talk on Birds Australia. Birds Australia is 100 years old and began as the Australasian Ornithological Union (the prefix Royal came later). Its founding objectives were:
Interestingly these are still the goals of the organisation, although the emphasis may have changed.
Key initiatives of Birds Australia in recent times have been the production of the Handbook of Australian and New Zealand Birds (HANZAB) and a number of strategic property purchases to conserve habitat. Five volumes of HANZAB have been published to date, with volume six in production. Funds still need to be raised before production of volume seven can proceed.
The two major habitat conservation projects have been the purchase of Gluepot and Newhaven Reserves. Both of these reserves protect a number of rare and threatened birds and animals. Bilby's have recently been discovered on Newhaven.
Birds Australia will continue further conservation efforts into the future.
Kathy Walter
COG Committee member and Garden Bird Survey coordinator Philip Veerman led off the October meeting. He presented us with an insight into the Australian Owlet Nightjar. We learned why the bird is named as it is (or was it why it isn't named what it isn't). Philip also showed us a few slides of the creature and played its call. The owlet nightjar is an interesting and seldom observed bird.
Janet Gardner, a doctoral student at the Australian National University, presented her thesis work on the Speckled Warbler, classified as vulnerable in New South Wales and Victoria. The decline in numbers is not only because of habitat loss, but also is related to fragmentation of these natural habitats. The bird frequents temperate woodlands in the 400-700 mm rainfall range. The Speckled Warbler's closest relative is the Redthroat. Over her three-year study at Campbell Park, Janet monitored 30 breeding groups or160 nests; translating into about 1 bird per five hectares.
A well done and thank you is extended to both speakers.
Charles Buer
Richard Allen started the presentations with the Bird-of-the-Month talk on pardalotes. The two species occurring in the Canberra region are the Spotted and the Striated Pardalotes, including three subspecies in the area. Richard showed several slides for comparisons of the birds and played their calls from tape.
Our main speakers for the evening were Julian Reed and Barry Baker. Julian expounded on the birdlife and management issues of the Cocos (Keeling Islands). Julian explained the island's biology and focused on the Buff-banded Rail as an indicator species. The rail is in severe decline on North Keeling Island. It is extinct on the South Island, probably due to one or all of the following: cats, two species of rats, chickens, changes in habitat and hunting. Threats on North Keeling Island include in-breeding; diseases and pathogens; rats, cats and chickens; and catastrophic events such as cyclones and shipwrecks. Recovery may mean introducing a population to a nearby island.
Barry then showed slides of the local avifauna including the Red-footed Booby and other resident species.
Charles Buer
Nicki Taws opened the evening's presentations with a synopsis of Babblers for the bird-of-the-month. Nicki showed a series of photographs pointing out the distinctive features separating the Grey-crowned and the White-browed Babbler. She also played an audio tape allowing members to compare the varied calls of the two species. Several differences between the species exist besides obvious field marks. The Grey-crowned Babbler keeps a territory year round, while the White-browed maintains a territory only during the breeding season. In general, the babblers are in decline. Both babblers are extinct from the ACT with loss of habitat the major culprit.
The featured speaker for the evening was Eric Andrews from the Eurobodalla Natural History Society. Eric's keen interest is the pelagic birds of the southeast coast region, the world's best pelagic birding area. Eighty species of pelagic birds have been recorded from this region. The continental shelf break is where most of the birds are observed. This area features a depth change from about 100 fathoms to 800-1000 fathoms and occurs about 20-23 nautical miles from the coast. The birds are attracted to the observer's boats with burly (popcorn in the US and shark liver in this area) which must float to be effective. Eric showed a series of outstanding photographs he's taken during many pelagic trips.
Charles Buer
David McDonald delivered the bird of the month talk with his usual enthusiasm. The subject was the White-fronted Chat, an uncommon breeding resident of the ACT. This Honeyeater Family member is generally found near water areas adjacent to grasslands. Numbers have been declining in recent years. Most records are before 1998 and generally from the first Atlas period. The species is a resident across southern Australia and Tasmania. There are no genetic differences between the Tasmanian and the continental populations, suggesting the two populations intermingle. If you are surprising the bird is a member of the Honeyeater Family, it retains a vestige tongue brush. It's call is 'tang' and generally occurs in flocks of 10-30 but can be as large as hundreds.
The main speaker for the evening was Dr. Denis Saunders, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. He brought us up to-date on the 'Trials and Tribulations of Carnaby's Cockatoo' or the White-tailed Black-Cockatoo. The bird occurs west of the 300 mm isocline in Western Australia and depends on tree hollows to breed and native vegetation for food. The species' future is extremely grim owing to extensive tree clearing in the bird's range. Over 90% of the vegetation the bird depends on is gone and the rest is threatened by increasing dry land salinity. The species is gone from one third of its range and still declining. Bird fatalities are also common from motor car strikes, as the bird tends to feed on road verges. When startled, the bird often flies into the path of the passing vehicle. Revegetation attempts are probably futile as it takes 110-140 years for trees to develop with the necessary hollows. The bird will probably be extinct before that occurs.
Charles Buer
Our June meeting featured bird art. Penny Olsen, who recently released her book Feather and Brush presented a very interesting abbreviated history of Australia bird art over the last 300 years. Artists from Holland, the first European visitors to Australia, and later explorers have recorded Australian birdlife, some of which is exceptionally beautiful. These drawings and paintings are also sometimes the only record of extinct species.
HANZAB illustrator, Peter Marsack, then presented his slant on bird illustration. Peter also did has illustrations in Feather and Brush. Using the Speckled Warbler and related birds as the subject, he talked of how illustrators do their paintings. Most historic artists worked only from study skins, and the final bird forms were generally far from lifelike. Some artists work from life, sketching details of their subjects in the field. Since the advent of photography, artists can provide more lifelike. Peter described the amount of time required for a painting such as is in the Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. It is easy to spend 120 hours on the painting itself, but there are also hundreds of hours in the pre-research, distilling of knowledge and photography even before starting to paint.
Charles Buer
Dick Schodde presented the Bird-of-the-Month talk. First, he recapped his talk from the last meeting, which focused on cuckoo-shrikes. This month's talk featured the egrets, which appear much easier to recognise. Dick concentrated on the four egrets found around Canberra, the Great Egret, Intermediate Egret, Cattle Egret and Little Egret. Very briefly, some of the main identifying characteristics for each species are:
Great Egret-The neck is longer than the body, large size, solitary, plumes on back.
Intermediate Egret-The neck is shorter than the body, smaller than a Great Egret, solitary, plumes on back.
Cattle Egret-Small in size, colonial habits, seen on open fields and pastures, rarely in water, russet colour on head in breeding, short bill.
Little Egret-Small in size, only egret with a long slender black bill in both non breeding and breeding plumages, plume at the back of the head, solitary, active feeder.
Our main speaker, Mark Westwood, from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, spoke about his work on the Shore Bird Recovery Program in NSW. Many shore birds are under threat from habitat destruction, predators, human usage of beaches and pollution. Their existence is threatened because of they breed on the ground and during peak holiday seasons, they have no real defences and people are often unaware of their presence. Recovery plans include three main focus areas: protect birds where they nest; collect information on them; and educating the public.
Key birds that are at risk include:
Success stories include the Red-capped Plover, which can number upwards of 20 pairs at the best breeding sites. They successfully breed at the same sites as Little Terns who provide some protection, as they vigorously defend their own nests. In addition Crested Terns breed successfully on Montague Island in large numbers.
For more information about the Shorebird Recovery Program, contact NPWS Merimbula (02) 6495 5000.
Kathy Walter
Dick Schodde led off the evening's program explaining how to differentiate between the White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike (formerly Little) and the Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike. As usual, his talk was to the point, worthwhile and entertaining. The best way to tell these birds apart is by their calls, which are very different. The black-faced form of the White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike confuses the issue considerably. Subtle differences do exist, however.
The main speaker for the evening was Nicholas Carlile, from the Threatened Fauna Ecology, Biodiversity Research and Management Division, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. Nicholas focused on the endangered sub-tropical petrels that he works with at the National Parks and Wildlife Service and also from experience gained during a 3-month study trip funded by the Churchill Memorial. There are over 130 species within the Procelliforme family including albatross, shearwaters, storm-petrels and petrels. In this final group some 25-40 petrels are from the genus Pterodroma. The 4 species of endangered petrels known to breed in the sub-tropics formed the presentation.
Nicholas discussed the Bermudan petrel or Cahow, Pterodroma cahow; Zino's petrel from Madeira, Portugal, locally known as Freira de Madeira, Pterodroma madeira; Hawaii's Dark-rumped Petrel, known locally as 'Ua'u, Pterodroma phaeopygia (pronounced Fay-o-pie-gia) and from Australia, the Gould's petrel Pterodroma leucoptera, from Port Stephens on the mid-north coast of NSW.
Like all Procelliformes these petrels only lay a single egg each season. They are strongly imprinted on their nesting sites, returning year after year to the same burrow. The petrels appear to mate for life and they all feed principally on small squid and fish. The location of their non-breeding season feeding areas is largely unknown.
In reviewing the status of these four endangered subtropical breeding petrels, a number of similarities can be drawn. All four petrel species are highly sensitive to changes in their breeding habitat and the introduction of predators. In the most part they seem capable of some recovery when the pressures of habitat loss and predation are reduced. All species require intensive management action for their survival. This necessitates not only the commitment of individual people, particularly in the case of the most critically endangered species of the Cahow and Zino's petrel, but also a recognition by governments of the problem and the allocation of resources to ameliorate some of these problems.
Those species that are restricted to smaller island habitats, Cahow and Gould's petrel, are more likely to have a secure future as the area of landmass that they breed on is more easily managed. For the Hawaiian 'Ua'u and Zino's petrel the problems of predation will be ongoing, but intensive management of the breeding areas and their surrounding habitat will hold the key to their future survival. The island-wide eradication of alien pests on such large and densely populated landmasses may never be possible.
While these species have been saved from extinction by the careful management of their breeding sites, the activities of all seabirds can easily be impacted from the reckless exploitation by humans of resources at sea. It is important that consideration be given to all new techniques of intensive fishery activities lest they unintentionally wipe out the gains that have been slowly made to protect these endangered petrels at their land-based sites.
The editor thanks Nicholas for providing the text of his presentation from which the previous was excerpted.
Charles Buer
The March meeting began with the Annual General Meeting. The speakers for the evening were Michael Lenz and Jack Holland.
Michael led off the talks with "Bird counts - how long should you do them?" Michael began by listing the surveys done in the Canberra region. The surveys are not funded in the long-term and depend on volunteer groups such as COG to implement and carry them out. The surveys are performed to determine what species are in the region of interest and can be repeated later for comparison purposes. These surveys have inherent problems that may include different climatic conditions between the different surveys and if undertaken twice, one cannot determine accurately what is happening with only two data points. Therefore, the longer a survey can occur the better the data becomes. Michael used the recent Birds of Canberra Gardens as a 17-year example of a good long-term result.
Jack Holland expounded on the increasing numbers of Satin Bowerbirds in the urban Canberra region. His data are generally based on his home turf of Rivett and included some defining moments. The first was when he made his first sighting at his garden and the second was when he realised the birds are common in his garden. There have been two large increases in the abundance of bowerbirds, in 1989-1990 and in 1993-1994. They were previously thought to be in Canberra during the winter only, but recently summer records have been added. He has seen bowers built in high densities (10 bowers within 400 metres) and the dominant one can change over short time spans. There are still few breeding records. The male is thought to be polygamous and the female builds the nest and performs all tasks after breeding occurs. The birds are quite secretive and Jack stated that they had been roosting within 100 metres of his home for three years without his realising it.
Charles Buer
The February meeting began with the bird-of-the-month talk featuring swifts. Richard Allen used study skins and overheads to describe the best time to see the birds and how to differentiate between the White-throated Needletail and the Fork-tailed Swift. He mentioned birds that can be confused with the swifts such as the swallows, martins and falcons. Ninety-five percent of the records are the White-throated Needletail, which is a stubby, cigar-shaped bird with a broad body. It is a larger bird than the Fork-tailed Swift. The Fork-tailed Swift appears as a dart in reverse with a narrower body. The fork in the tail is rarely seen. It is a smaller bird with thinner pointier wings. There are records of needletails landing in Australia, but no records exist of the swifts landing. The two species can flock together and are most commonly seen from January to March in Canberra.
This is a copy of an overhead shown by Richard. It is a skyward view of swifts on a storm front somewhere in Canberra. In addition to the two species of swifts, there are two other species in view. Can you correctly name the birds 1-13? (answers here).
Jim Wilson was the featured speaker for the evening. He detailed the Bar-tailed Godwit's migration from Australia to their breeding grounds in Alaska and Northern Siberia. It is assumed the breeding occurs there because of the spring food flush. The population of Bar-tailed Godwits is some 330,000 individuals divided into two populations in Australia. One inhabits northwestern Australia and the other eastern Australia and New Zealand. The western race has shorter wings and longer bills. The birds stage on the way north to resupply body fat they need for breeding. The western race flies to the Shanghai, China area, where on arrival they have lost about 20% of their body weight, yet the birds are eaten by the Chinese. Godwits arriving in Korea are mixed flocks from western and eastern Australia. The birds arriving on the south coast of Japan are mostly eastern Australian birds. It is unclear which populations arrive on the north coast of the Yellow Sea. The birds make the reverse migration in a flight straight across the sea to Australia and New Zealand, some 11,000 kilometres-quite an amazing feat.
Charles Buer
The Annual Member's Night kicked off in grand fashion with a great program of speakers. The talent in the COG organisation is superb. David McDonald started the evening with a synopsis of his Castle Hill site near Tharwa, for the Australian Bird Count encompassing Jan 1989-August 1995. The count was sponsored by the RAOU, now Birds Australia. David described the bird populations according to relative abundance.
Golo Maurer stepped to the podium next and discussed "How to do conservation when there are no pristine habitats left. An example from southwestern Germany". He talked briefly about the history of the European landscape and how it has been changed by human intervention indicating, "It is better to try to save the habitat than specific species". Golo then showed some slides of the Wollmatinger Ried Reserve at the Lake of Constance.
Harvey Perkins then gave a hilarious slide show on bird photography with most slides taken over the Christmas holiday near Bundaberg.
Kay Hahne treated us to a poem by A.B. Patterson "The Black Swan" and then one she had written on an Environment Tour to the wet tropics in 1999. This poem is presented elsewhere in this edition of Gang-gang.
Following an intermission of tea, coffee and conversation, Nicki Taws showed us some trends regarding the Atlas, comparing the previous data with the current data. Much of the news is not good with more birds in decline. Since the inclusion of the Hooded Robin and Brown Treecreeper on the threatened list, other species are now in the near-threatened category. These species are the Speckled Warbler, the Southern Whiteface and the Diamond Firetail.
Geoffrey Dabb favoured us with a series of slides he had taken near Gundabooka, ending with the Painted Honeyeater. Nicely done, Geoff!
Jonette McDonnell then talked about what she finds special about her "patch" near Duffy.
The evening was topped off by a series of slides from Graham 'Steve' Stephinsen, "The best of 2000". It is always a treat to see Steve's slides, which ranged from a Crimson Chat to Welcome Swallows, all up close and personal.
Charles Buer