Education activities October 2019

A very successful Birds in Schools Program has continued this month. Both Sally Heeps and Bill Ramsay have been to both Cornish College on 10 October and Wooranna Park Primary School on 17 October.  I thank them for their contributions to these programs.

On Sunday 13 October, Graeme Hosken led another successful bird walk around Wilson Botanic Park in Berwick organised by The Friends of Wilson Botanic Park.  The day was fine, cool and with no wind. Fourteen people attended the two hour walk with 21 species recorded.  Species numbers now average 25 over the 18 visits since 2004. The records now show 87 species found there over that period – not bad for a park now in a suburban environment. Thank you Graeme.

The U3A Hawthorn Birdwalk, led by Pat Bingham, was around Banyule Wetlands on Friday, 18 October. Thirteen participants recorded 35 species. Lots of breeding – including three frogmouth nests (one with one young), Eastern Swamphen with one young, Buff-banded Rail with three young, and countless Noisy Miner families.  On the swamp they also had a pair of Pink-eared Ducks (sadly driven out of the nest boxes this year by aggressive Silver Gulls) and a couple of Cattle Egret in partial breeding plumage.

The Blackburn Creeklands Spring Bird Survey was held early on Saturday morning, 19 October.  31 people (a mixture of adults and a good number of eagle-eyed children) split into two groups led by Ian Moodie and Pat Bingham. They headed off in opposite directions, returned for morning tea and combined their bird lists into one, with a total of 29 species.  Highlights were four Frogmouth nests (but no young seen), Mudlarks incubating, Grey Butcherbirds and Kookaburras feeding young, and both Chestnut Teal and Pacific Black Duck with broods of small ducklings on the creek.  We  also recorded Gang-Gang Cockatoos, Little and Long-billed Corellas, Galahs, King Parrots and both Eastern and Crimson Rosellas – a good number of which may compete for breeding in the many excellent tree hollows along the creek.

On Sunday 27 October 2019 we held our 21st Breakfast with the Birds at Banyule in partnership with the Banyule City Council.  This year we made a small charge to attend after more than half of the people booked in 2018 failed to turn up.  We had 80 people present out of the 96 who booked. These were split up into ten walking groups who walked the Banyule Flats and Warringal areas for two hours.  Upon their return the Council supplied a beautiful sit-down breakfast.  A bird call totalled 67 species with two new ones being added this year.  Gang-gang Cockatoos and a Leaden Flycatcher.  This makes a total of 126 species in Banyule on this day since records began in 2001 and 68 in the Warringal area since we started recording there in 2011.  I must thank the Banyule City Council for the wonderful spread of food, Jim Mead, their Environmental Sustainability Education Officer and his helpers (Alice, Micky and Rob in the kitchen) and John and Meg who helped with telescopes at the wetlands.  I must also thank my helpers Susan and Kevin Bailey, Peter Bennet, Pat Bingham, Alan Crawford, Pete Dynes, Lyn and Geoff Easton, Meg Houghton, Margaret Lo, Bill Ramsay and Sonja Ross.  Also thank you Daphne Hards who assisted with a telescope at the wetlands and Anthea Fleming for her information on the Warringal Conservation Group.  Another very successful day.  Thank you everyone.

Photos below:

Janet Hand, BirdLife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone: 9842 4177)

Education report – April and May 2019

The Blackburn Creeklands Survey was held on Saturday, 13 April. The regular Autumn Survey started from a new venue, Kalang Park Pavilion, at 0730 am and brought 29 people out on a rather cool, dull, morning to look for the local birds. Good start – Long-billed Corellas (two adults and a noisily-begging youngster), a small flock of Crested Pigeons, ubiquitous Noisy Miners and a couple of Welcome Swallows greeted the two parties as they set off, westwards led by Ian Moodie and eastwards by Pat Bingham.  A couple of hours later on returning for morning tea, they had a total of 29 species including good looks at Gang-gang Cockatoos, King Parrots, White-faced Heron and a new record for the Creeklands, an Australasian Darter. The unusualness of this species for this location was recognised by the numerous alarm calls and harassment it induced in the local Noisy Miner population, some fifteen members of which vigorously chased the bird away upstream (towards Blackburn Lake itself, some 2 kms away). As usual, several pairs of Tawny Frogmouths were spotted along the Creeklands and many people were amazed at their ubiquity – saying -“I walk along here every day/week/….. and haven’t ever seen them”!

Saturday, 4 May 2019 was the start of City of Boroondara Backyard Biodiversity Program in Ashburton. An introductory workshop was held by the Coordinator Amy Shaw and involved approximately 45 people spread over two sessions. Each session outlined the program for the next seven weeks before a Powerpoint was given on the birds found in 2018 and 2019 in Boroondara as per Birdata records. The second half of each session was all about entering Birdata and how you can search Birdata. Both these presentations were given by Janet Hand.

Photo by Amy Shaw

Saturday 11 May 2019 was the second part of the City of Boroondara Backyard Biodiversity Program. This was a ramble and birdwalk held at the Willsmere Billabong in East Kew.  Week two saw Sally Heeps and Pat Bingham take the participants for a very successful bird walk on avery dull day which meant finding birds was quite difficult in the gloom. Some 40 lovely local people (7 – 80 years and a babe in a backpack), attended; half went off to look at plants and Sally and Pat split the rest into two groups and headed off in opposite directions around the billabong.  The groups swapped over after about 45 mins and repeated the activity. Some of the birds identified were Brown Thornbills, Superb Fairy Wrens, a Common Bronzewing, White-faced Heron, several Crested Pigeons, a Willie Wagtail, Magpie lark and many Rainbow Lorikeets. They also heard Common froglets after the rains on the Friday before the walk.  There were some excellent questions from young and old alike and though they probably only saw 20 species, everyone seemed to have enjoyed the session and are interested in planting habitat in their own gardens.

On Wednesday 15 May 2019 ten ladies and their carers from Mercy Place Boronia joined us at the Blackburn Lake Education Centre for a short Powerpoint about the 15 most common birds found around Boronia before doing a craft activity of making bookmarks using stickers and textas. Morning tea was enjoyed before some went for a short walk near the lake.  Janet Hand was assisted by Gay Gallagher, Jenny Frohlich and Peter Dempsey.

Photo by Lisa Menahem

The U3A Hawthorn Birdwalk, Friday 17 May was again led by Pat Bingham. Sixteen members of U3A Hawthorn gathered at Rickett’s Point, Beaumaris for a walk along the foreshore and through the adjacent bush. First highlight for the day were ‘Scaly-breasted’ Lorikeets at the Tea House.  They found a mixed pair (Rainbow & ‘Scaly-breasted’) jointly excavating a hole in a Coast Banksia and then a pair of ‘Scaly-breasted’, doing likewise less than 10 feet away. The ‘Scaly-breasteds’ were probably all, themselves, hybrids, as they had rather blue heads and are well-known to hybridise with Rainbows.  Second highlight was a sighting of over 300 Little Black Cormorants lining the shore on all the rocky outcrops exposed at low tide. There must have been some good breeding locally, and/or rich feeding for such a number to be roosting together. They saw 26 other species during the morning including close views of a Spotted Pardalote at eye-level, a small flock of Hoary-headed Grebe in the shallows off-shore and a Red Wattlebird at 3 feet stealing crumbs from an adjacent table as they coffeed at the Tea House after our walk.  Photographs by Jim Sharpe.

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Birds in Schools Program held a professional development session for teachers and volunteers on Wednesday 29 May.  The program was run by Alexandra Johnson from BirdLife and is to be implemented in some schools in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne.  The training session was held at the Moreland City Council Offices in Hadfield. The plan is to teach children about birds and their habitat and finally plan and execute an improved habitat at their schools. Bill Ramsay attended this first session.

Thank you to all the above people who have helped and those who have supplied information and photographs.

Janet Hand, BirdLife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone: 9842 4177)

 

April Education Report

The Autumn Survey at Blackburn Creeklands was held on Saturday 14 April, which was very windy and dull, but the 27 participants, including visitors from South Australia, Holland and China, enjoyed the 27 species they found. Everyone had superb views of Gang-gang Cockatoos, feeding on gumn uts, squabbling over perches and trying to get away from a very persistent youngster who wanted to be fed. Other Autumn visitors like King Parrots and Grey Fantails were good to see but the resident Tawny Frogmouths, Brown Thornbills and White-browed Scrubwrens were rather hard to find. 27 species is a low number for the survey (now in its 7^thyear) but the dry conditions and the wind on the day may have contributed to this rather poor result.

This survey was led by Pat Bingham and Ian Moodie. Pat also led the Karkarook walk (below).

The U3A Hawthorn outing was on Friday 20 April. There were 14 attendees including six newcomers to this programme. There was bright sunshine in Melbourne but they hit a bank of fog just as they got to Karkarook Park in Heatherton, so that the birds seemed quiet and the wetlands ‘disappeared’. Luckily, a few Noisy Miners continued to chase a Brush-tailed Possum through the gums (did the possum think it was still night-time?) and Pied Currawongs called eerily from the gloom – so they at least had something to peer for! Eventually the mistiness cleared and they found six species of duck, a busy flock of Red-browed Finches acrobatically collecting grass-seed, a party of Superb Fairy-wrens including young males in their sombre winter colours and blue tails, and a Little Wattlebird (uncommon at Karkarook). The wren’s winter plumage change and the differentiation of Little and Red Wattlebirds made good talking-points for beginning birders, and the total of 33 species for the morning sent them home with lots of ‘homework’ to do. The following photographs were taken by Sue Wilson – a member of this group. I thank Pat and Sue for their contributions.

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Janet Hand, BirdLife Melbourne Education Coordinator (Phone: 9842 4177)