survival ABOUT THREE YEARS ago I had the impression of the loudest

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1 survival of the loudest ABOVE RED WATTLE BIRD (PHOTOGRAPH GRAHAM OLDE). OPPOSITE PAGE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT BLUE WREN (PHOTOGRAPH HELEN ERSKINE); EASTERN SPINEBILL (PHOTOGRAPH GRAHAM OLDE); PIED CURRAWONG (PHOTOGRAPH CHRISTINE KELLY); SIMON ROBINSON IN HIS BUNDANOON GARDEN (PHOTOGRAPH TONY SHEFFIELD); CRIMSON ROSELLA (PHOTOGRAPH ANGELA TOWNDROW); LAUGHING KOOKABURRA (PHOTOGRAPH PADDY DONKIN). Diverse, colourful, numerous and often raucous, the birds of the Southern Highlands seem to be thriving. But PETER MEREDITH finds out that appearances can be deceptive. ABOUT THREE YEARS ago I had the impression something odd was happening in my shrubby Bowral garden. The bird population, always a source of delight to my family, seemed to be changing. It was a gradual, barely perceptible shift, but you could spot it if you kept your eyes open. At first the eastern spinebill, the beautiful little nectar-feeder that had always been a regular visitor, failed to show up. Then the silvereyes, which used to pass through on their migrations, stopped coming. The willie wagtail followed, and soon the gentle rusty-hinge creak of the gang-gang cockatoo faded away. Finally the pair of red wattlebirds that had nested in a familiar bush for years vanished little more than a year ago. Not that this left us short of birds. On the contrary, the garden was still full them. But they were a different and rowdier mob: magpies, currawongs, ravens, kookaburras, crimson rosellas, king parrots, galahs, noisy miners, pied butcherbirds and throngs of cacophonous corellas at dawn and dusk. What was going on? Had my initial impression been right? I decided to find out what the experts had to say. Canberra birdwatcher Doug Laing wrote in Wildlife Australia magazine in 2013 that the huge growth and diversity of the bush capital s birdlife was really a story of winners and losers. He concluded: To an extent we have been mesmerised by the bold and the beautiful that dominate our human spaces. What we have not seen until it is almost too late is the slow fade of the meek and the mild the birds of our woodland remnants which have not yet adapted, and perhaps never will, to the habitats we have created. Canberra is no exception. In Sydney, scientists have noted 114 HIGHLIFEMAGAZINE.COM.AU

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3 radical modifications that humans have wrought on the region s original plant and animal life. Forests with dense understorey have given way to more open spaces grassy paddocks, or manicured lawns dotted with tall trees and mature native trees with plentiful nesting hollows have given way to exotic deciduous trees with no hollows. Alien predators such as cats and foxes prowl through these landscapes at night on the hunt for small creatures. In the natural order of things, the two bird groups coexist, Peter says. The meek and the mild and the gentle are hiding away in the bushes below and the bold and the beautiful and the bigger are higher up in the trees. But suddenly the environment contracts and changes and the meek and the mild can t survive. The others survive and then thrive because they adapt to the new environment but the meek and the mild and the gentle get pushed out and die. species that are larger and noisier and behave more aggressively towards other birds are prospering in the more built-up Highlands areas. The losers are the small woodland birds the success of parrots, cockatoos, white ibises, currawongs, bowerbirds, brush turkeys and noisy miners, describing the last on that list as the city s most despised resident. An Australian native it may be, but not universally popular. Australian Museum ornithologist Richard Major says: Noisy miners are a really successful bird in Australia and have now been listed as a key threatening process in NSW and federally because they do drive anything smaller than them out of their territory. The smaller birds are the ones that tend to be declining in Australia. Tim Low, a Queensland-based biologist and author, writes that similar changes are playing out in every Australian city. In his book Where Song Began, he says smart, aggressive birds are revelling in the urban environment, but often at the expense of other birds. Australia, he says, is a land in which some of the world s loudest, smartest and most colourful birds are thriving. So is all this a clue to what s happening in the Southern Highlands? Undeniably, says qualified ornithologist Dr Peter Dewey, a member of Birdlife Southern Highlands (a branch of Birdlife Australia). Peter confirms that species that are larger and noisier and behave more aggressively towards other birds are prospering in the more built-up Highlands areas. The losers are the small woodland birds, such as honeyeaters, spinebills, fairy wrens, scrub wrens, finches, fantails, gerygones, pardalotes, wattle birds, robins, silvereyes, as well as some larger species, like gang-gangs and glossy black cockatoos. These population shifts have been precipitated by the The noisy miner does particularly well in open forest with little or no understorey. It s known as an edge environment because it s found on the boundary between forest and grassland. In Bowral many gardens have an edge feel to them and the small birds are missing from them. In their garden, Peter and wife Sylvia foster densely packed shrubbery and groundcover, a mix of natives and exotics, such as grevilleas, westringias and camellias. The shrubs give the small birds cover all year, Peter says. Pointing out different parts of the garden, he adds, We ve got white-browed scrub wrens nesting in that corner and spinebills nesting in this corner. There are satin bowerbirds and gerygones out the front and the red wattlebird nests up there. He concedes, however, that having so many native small birds in his garden is due to the closeness of a unique geographical feature. We have this beautiful, natural habitat called the Gib. It acts as a reservoir for birds, which can spread out from there into the town and survive if gardens have vegetation that suits them. Not all parts of the Highlands are so fortunate. Retired vet Simon Robinson is the bird group s conservation officer and, like Peter, a qualified ornithologist. During his 10 years in Bundanoon he s seen a number of changes in the bird population, which are slightly different from those happening around Bowral. Part of the reason may be that the town sits on the edge of a large area of native bush Morton National Park. As everywhere else, there are winners and losers. Simon has watched the decline and disappearance of smaller birds from his garden, birds such as finches, scrub wrens, superb fairy-wrens, rose robins and wattlebirds. Glossy black cockatoos have also declined in the area, as have gang-gangs. Successful survivors in Simon s garden have been the noisy miners, grey butcherbirds and bowerbirds. They have recently been joined by lyrebirds. We are reasonably close to the national park. Lyrebirds quite like European-style gardens, with mulch to dig up, he says. Overall, the biggest winners in the Bundanoon area have been king parrots, eastern rosellas and crimson rosellas, he believes. And of course magpies. A successful immigrant from overseas has been the common myna, which was introduced to Melbourne in the 1860s and has since spread out along roadways. I see them in the middle 116 HIGHLIFEMAGAZINE.COM.AU

4 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP CHRISTINE KELLY IN HER BURRADOO GARDEN (PHOTOGRAPH TONY SHEFFIELD); GANG GANG COCKATOO (PHOTOGRAPH SUE STANLEY); MALE KING PARROT (PHOTOGRAPH HELEN ERSKINE). OPPOSITE PAGE PETER DEWEY IN HIS BOWRAL GARDEN (PHOTOGRAPH TONY SHEFFIELD). of Bundanoon nowadays, whereas I don t think they were there when we came. They are along the main drag and along the railway. I think they just follow the human rubbish trail. They nest in hollows and therefore compete with native species. Other non-native invaders are blackbirds, sparrows, European goldfinches and cattle egrets. However, not all newcomers to the area are from outside Australia. These days you see rainbow lorikeets, little corellas and long-billed corellas, crested pigeons and increasing numbers of bell miners in the Highlands; all have come from other parts of our continent. The two corella species, mostly thought to be aviary escapees, are interbreeding and may be creating a new species. Warming linked to climate change may be another factor behind shifting bird behaviour, Simon thinks. It means that birds that used to migrate down to the coastal lowlands in winter to escape the cold no longer need to. Currawongs used to do that, but they have become static and urbanised. They re here all year round. And rainbow lorikeets, originally coastal residents, are now very happy in the Highlands. With such fundamental and seemingly unstoppable forces driving these changes in our area, we may feel powerless to help struggling birds. But actually there s plenty we can do. Christine Kelly, the bird group s president, says many native bird species have vanished from her Burradoo garden over the past 30 years. She puts it down to development in the district and clearing of vegetation, especially big trees and dense shrubbery. I think the average household should replant their gardens HIGHLIFEMAGAZINE.COM.AU 117

5 SILVEREYE (PHOTOGRAPH HELEN ERSKINE). We have this beautiful, natural habitat called the Gib. It acts as a reservoir for birds, which can spread out from there into the town and survive if gardens have vegetation that suits them. with natives. I know what my personal contribution will be, and my husband and I are working towards it, she says. We re replanting with grevilleas, callistemons, correas, eriostemons, wattles, native grasses and ground covers, all plants that provide shelter for smaller birds. Unfortunately there s a perception that shrubby native gardens are messy. But, as Christine says, Natural messy gardens attract birds. A garden doesn t have to be all native to do that. It can be a mix of native and exotic, as another bird group committee member, Erna Llenore, has discovered. She has lived for 10 years on a Burradoo property where the garden initially consisted How to attract small birds to your garden 1. Plant shrubs and groundcover, both native and exotic, and keep them densely packed so they provide shelter and protection. Prune regularly. 2. Flowers provide food for nectar-feeders. Have some plants flowering in autumn and winter. 3. Insect eaters love well mulched beds. Allow leaf litter, bark and twigs to build up to encourage insects. Piles of rocks or stones provide homes for insects and lizards. 4. Native grasses attract rosellas, cockatoos and finches in search of seeds and nesting material. 5. Leave annuals as long as possible so birds can eat the seeds. 6. If you have fruit trees, leave fallen fruit to provide food. Ensure it is disease free. 7. Set up a birdbath in a protected spot. Clean and disinfect it regularly to prevent the spread of infections. 8. Provide nest boxes. Different creatures require different designs, so do your research. For further info visit: wsc.nsw.gov.au/habitat-for-wildlife, wsc.nsw.gov.au/flora-fauna and birdsinbackyards.net mostly of lawn and fruit trees. The trees were labour-intensive, so Erna and her husband took them out and began progressively planting native shrubs beside the surrounding hedges. They also mulched well, left dead twigs and branches lying around on the ground, and installed birdbaths. The flowering shrubs produced nectar, the mulch and dead material harboured insects and the birdbaths held water. The hedges are camphor laurel, Erna says. They re not great but the birds are very happy to hide in them. So we ve learnt that if you want to encourage the little guys, you have to give them water, various food sources and a safe place. Beginning with an eastern spinebill, the small native birds have gradually been coming back. And although Erna is keen on endemic plants, she points out that most of the trees in her garden are deciduous. But the little birds seem just as happy in those trees as they are in the rest of the garden, she says. People shouldn t feel they ve got to go all native, especially in this area where autumn and spring are so gorgeous. You can have a combination and still be looking after the small native birds. Individual native gardens won t on their own slow the decline of small native birds. Many such gardens need to be linked by vegetation corridors, allowing birds to move safely from one refuge to another. Erna says the small birds that showed up on her property probably came from mature gardens nearby. Corridors, refuges, havens and reserves for birds all depend on humans, so it would be easy to be pessimistic, but Peter Dewey certainly isn t. He sees two causes for optimism. One is based on his conviction that humans are more conscious than ever of their impact on the planet and are beginning to do something about it. And the other? Birds have been around for at least 40 million years, far longer than humans, Peter says. They ll still be here in one form or another after we re gone. Maybe it ll just be noisy miners, magpies and corellas, but they ll be here and they ll continue to evolve. So I think we can all be quite optimistic. HL 118 HIGHLIFEMAGAZINE.COM.AU