Red-capped Robin in Carwoola

On the morning of 10 January I heard a strange call n the garden.  I can best transliterate it as "drrit, drittt" repeated quite a few times.  On going to investigate I found it to be a male Red-capped Robin.

Not all great art, but they do give an idea of how beautiful this bird is.  (I have a personal view that it is not possible to have too many views or images of Red-capped Robins.)

Later in the day a second bird with much less colour (more a reddish brown tinge on forehead and breast) was also present.  I would take a punt on it being an immature male: the red on the forehead wasn't clear enough to suggest an adult female.

There are two previous records in the area, from May and June 2010.

This is another inland species doubtless driven this way by appalling weather.

My May 2014 the weather has improved, at least to the point of having decent rainfall.  However a Red-capped Robin is still in the area.  However it has been residing at a property on Hoskinstown Plain.  Image by Leone.

Plumed Whistling Ducks follow the water

I have posted from time to time about the appearance of Plumed Whistling Ducks (PWD) on a dam beside Trucking Yard Lane on the outskirts of Bungendore.  That dam is now very close to dry and the PWD haven't been seen there for a while.  However 12 of them have appeared at the Bungendore Sewage Works over the last few days.

Some of them are shown above together with

• Pacific Black Duck
• Grey Teal
• Hardhead 
• Australian Wood Duck and 
• Australasian Shoveler

The PWD are at the point labelled 2 in this snip of the poo pits from Google Earth and are visible from the road.  (Be careful: the road is very busy with funsters coming back from the coast.)

If you go into the area labelled 1 you get a good view of the pond closest to Bungendore which was decorated with Pink-eared Ducks and Australian White Ibis (as well as several of the species named above).  (Of course, be careful not to impede the trucks for which this area was constructed.)

For more waterfowl, try the Queanbeyan Sewage Works.

Annual Report 2013: overall picture

This is an overall report on birds observed in Carwoola in 2013.  I use the term Carwoola to cover the catchment area of the Stoney Creek Gazette,  As well as Carwoola itself it includes a bunch of localities (including Primrose Valley and, importantly, Hoskinstown) to the SE of Queanbeyan.  It is illustrated in this sketch map:

The database I maintain is pretty well restricted to that area to provide some consistency.  However if very interesting birds are reported in a some what wider area:

• where people might like to go and view the birds (eg sightings of Banded Lapwings just outside  Bungendore and Plumed Whistling Ducks on dams close thereto); or
• the sighting suggests we should keep an eye in case they also turn up here

I will also include them on this blog but not the database nor - other than mentions like this - in my reports.

While I largely followed the model used for the Annual Report for 2011 and 2012, in particular the decision to adopt a multi-post approach, what follows has to some extent evolved during writing.  .  (For those that think the result is still too long, the Canberra Ornithologists Group Annual Bird Report is 80 A5 pages - and 2Mb to download!)

This report will be a bit heavy on numbers but I will attempt to explain them in terms of their meaning rather than simply a barrage of percentages!  For those who wish to skip the statistics I have tried to highlight the main points in bold blue.

A first point to note is that there has been an amount of churn in the panel of observers during the year.  2 observers who were regular reporters have moved on and others were away for periods during the year (in late July none of the regular observers were on deck for a couple of weeks for various reasons).  However, later in the year other s have stepped up and are now reporting regularly.  Thanks folks!

By the end of 2013 we had recorded, over a 7 year period, 183 species in the catchment area of the Gazette.   7 species were observed for the first time in 2013 and by the end of that year year 19 have been recorded in every month since this project started in 2007.  That number has remained constant for 3 years and can probably be taken as the minimum number of resident species..

Over the 7 year period 89 species have been recorded undertaking breeding activity.  7 species were recorded breeding for the first time in 2013.

The number of species observed for the first time or recorded breeding for the first time are shown for each year below.

It is interesting that over a 30 year period the Garden Bird Survey, run by the Canberra Ornithologists Group has recorded 239 species with 108 of these (46.2%) recorded as breeding.  Given the much shorter time span and far fewer observers I think we have, to quote Young Mister Grace, "...all done very well."

In 2013, 154 species were recorded in the study area.  This is 84% of those ever recorded in the area.  This graph shows the number of species recorded per year.

The increase between 2011 and 2013, despite the decline in observer effort in 2013  is in part due to:

• the astonishing variety of birds seen in and near an ephemeral swamp in the Hoskinstown Plain over the Summer of 2012-13.  (That Swamp is now waterless and I expect a decline in future as a result.);
• dry conditions in the inland beginning to send birds from that area to our part of the country in late 2013.  

In 2012 34.7% of the species recorded were observed undertaking some form of breeding activity.  This value is slightly lower than in other years in this area and it is tempting to ascribe this to some attribute of the year (eg the very high rainfall in January - March).  Another possible cause is the inflation of the denominator of this average by a relatively high number of vagrant species

Links to other sections of this report

Breeding Birds
2013 cf 2012
2013 cf previous 6 years

Annual Report 2013: Breeding Activity

The preamble to this post is copied from last year.  That makes this report more self-contained, which I see as a Good Thing.  

It can be argued that recording breeding events is the most important aspect of bird observation since if the birds do not breed they will soon be extinct!  It is however a more difficult task than simple observation as: 

• many birds go to some lengths to conceal their nests; and
• it is necessary to be very cautious with most species to avoid frightening the birds away from the nest.

To ameliorate these problems a wide definition of breeding is employed with the core events of "nest with eggs" and "nest with young" supported by a range of other, indirect, measures of breeding activity ranging from breeding display to dependent young. (I sometimes feel that a new code is needed for "indolent young" when the Magpie chicks are clearly able to fend for themselves but would rather bludge off their parents.) To be rated as dependent young the fledglings must be

• out of the nest and generally be seen being fed by the parents or, 
• in the case of waterbirds, be incapable of flight.  

I have made an exception for the Tawny Frogmouths where the fledglings are fed at night and it isn't possible to determine how this is achieved.  In that case the young are considered dependent until they move away from the parents some 10 weeks or so after leaving the nest.

(In other countries such as Canada studies are undertaken which assume all birds seen or heard  during the breeding season are in fact breeding.)

The number of records of each type over the 7 years of the project is in the chart below.

There does not look to be any significant difference with "dependent young" dominating in both categories.  Note that this may not mean that the nest site was in the area.

Since this project commenced 563 breeding records have been noted. The decision to use the COG Breeding codes was made in late 2009 and thus approximately 1/5th of the records are not coded to type of activity.  Such is life, and the uncoded records are excluded from the above!  

A difficulty with analysis of breeding records is that the peak breeding period in the Southern Hemisphere is split by the change of calendar year.  This is illustrated in the following chart.

To overcome this I commenced, in mid 2009, recording the 'financial year" in which observations were made and it is possible from that point on to re-categorise observations to a "breeding year" (running from July to June).  It might be noted that 81% of the records after December are coded as dependent young.  The incidence of type of event x month is illustrated by this chart.

Following from this, the next section mostly covers 3 breeding seasons ending on 30 June 2013. The 2013-14 season will, inshallah, be reported on next year, but at this stage appears similar to history.

The records for 2009-10 show 58 breeding records, 2010 -11 123 breeding events ,2011-12 137 breeding events and for 2012-13 105  breeding records have been recorded. 

It is difficult to assign reasons for the drop for 2012-13 - I might try to do a separate post on this later.  In summary the following is found:

• 15 species which bred in 2012-13 had not done so in 2011-12;
• 17 species which bred in 2011-12 did not repeat the process in 2012-13.
• 5 species have the same number of reports in the two seasons;
• of the species which bred in both years with different numbers of reports,  the number of reports was greater in :
• 2011-12 in 18 cases; and 
• 2012-13 in 16 cases.

I think this resolves to an observation that breeding records are damn difficult to get.

In 2010-11 51 species were recorded as breeding while 52 species were recorded in 2011-12 and 49 in 2012-13..  These have been indicated as such in the monthly reports.  

The number of reports received over the 7 years by species is summarised in the following table.

# reports	# species
1	17
2-4	30
5-10	16
11-15	8
16+	5

As expected a large proportion of species have only been reported undertaking breeding activity a few times.  The five species with 16 or more breeding records are:

• Australian Magpie (34 reports): the swooping of defending adults and the whingeing of the dependent young are hard to ignore, however much one tries.
• Willie Wagtail (22 reports): The records for this species cover a wide range of types of "nest-centred" events, possibly reflecting the energetic distraction displays, having the unintended outcome of leading keen observers to the nest (rather than away from it).
• Tawny Frogmouth (16 reports): Once noticed the nest and parents with dependent young are easy to relocate.  Also the breeding season is 5 months long from the start of nesting to kicking the young out.
• Pied Currawong (16 reports): see Australian Magpie.
• Yellow-rumped Thornbill (16 reports): Very common species and feeding young often happens out in the open.

A couple of species dropped off the "commonest' list since last year.   Striated Pardalote possibly reflects departure of a regular observer.  Australasian Grebe is possibly affected by our top dam being deserted this year, but the nests were far less obvious around the district.  Is this an impact of the dry period after last Summer?

Links to Other Sections

Overall picture

2013 cf 2012

2013 cf previous 6 years

Annual report: 2013 compared to 2012

I have indicated in the overview that the number of observers was a tad unstable in 2013.  Despite that I think some nuggets of information can be picked out by comparing the two years.

Of the  183 species recorded in this project 164 species (89.6%) were reported in one or both of the years covered by this analysis.  Of these 162 species:

• 11 were reported in 2012 but not in 2013;
• 14 were reported in 2013 but not in 2012 (of which 7 were reported for the first time in 2012); and 
• 139 species were reported in both years.

Looking at the entire 164 species there is a very strong correlation (correlation coefficient 0.88) between the number of months each species was reported in the two years.  Thus it can be concluded that the two data sets are reasonably consistent.

Of the 11 species recorded in 2012 but not 2013, 7 were sighted in a single month 1 was seen in 2 months; 2 in 3 months and 1 (Latham's Snipe) in 4 months. 

For those seen in 2013 but not reported in 2012:

• 10 species (6 of these being additions to the area list) were seen in a single month
• 2 species (no additions) were seen in 2 months in 2012;
• 2 species (1 addition) were seen in 3 months in 2012;  and 

 38 species were reported every month in both years.

The following table shows the aggregate number of months in which members of the broad groups of species were seen in the two years.

The similarity of results between the two is readily apparent except for Birds of Prey,  Honeyeaters, Thornbills and Other Smaller birds.

With respect to Raptors (ie diurnal Birds of Prey) the differences are +/- one month for most species, but with significant differences (both drops) for Spotted Harrier and Collared Sparrowhawk.  I believe both of these reflect the unavailability of particular observers.

For the Honeyeater group 6 of the 12 species recorded are covered in 10 or more month of the year.  There are 4 other species with differences of +/- 1 species months.  The big drops are: 

• Yellow-tufted Honeyeater (from 3 -> 0, probably reflecting my not having been to the specific part of Yanununbeyan SCA this year); and 
• White-naped Honeyeater (from 7 -> 1.  I have no idea why this might be so, as the species still seems common in the forest of the Brindabellas and Tallaganda.)

A similar situation applies with the Thornbills and allies group.  Considering the observer changes the records showing that 15 of 20 species in the group were reported in 11 or 12 months of both years is remarkably consistent.  The major changers are both relatively uncommon species:

• Speckled Warbler dropped from 5 to 3; and 
• Southern Whiteface from 9 to 6.

I am inclined to regard this as an outcome of generally reduced observer effort, including by this author!

The major increase group is the "Other Smaller birds".  The overall reporting rates are lower for this group (which includes a number of migrant species) but in general for the 21 species in the group the rates are similar for the two years.  The four species with the greatest increase are Eurasian Slylark, Golden-headed Cisticola, Rufous Songlark and Brown Songlark.  I could offer an hypothesis that these increased reporting rates are a byproduct of the greater attention paid to the Hoskinstown Plain when checking out the swamp in the Summer of 2012-13.

Links to other parts of the Annual Report

Overall picture

Breeding Birds

2013 cf previous 6 years

Annual report: 2013 compared to 6 previous years

The following table summarises the number of species reported by month and year. Yellow fill is the highest (or in two cases, equal highest) number of species for a month.  The blue filled cell indicates the month in which observer effort was particularly constrained

Month	Observation year
	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
jan		69	86	89	95	94	125
feb	59	74	71	88	89	96	112
mar	69	72	78	79	88	94	105
apr		65	71	79	75	93	92
may	61	65	82	80	80	81	82
jun	51	69	71	77	65	79	78
jul	54	58	66	77	78	87	64
aug	57	72	74	80	90	97	76
sep	67	79	86	86	101	98	87
oct	67	85	92	97	99	113	107
nov	73	84	106	96	108	108	106
dec	60	84	96	95	99	116	114

Looking at the 154 species which were recorded in the area in 2013 in comparison with  the previous 5 years a first comment is that 7 species were observed in this area for the first time in 2012.  These were

• Whiskered tern; Painted Snipe; Glossy Ibis; Pink-eared duck; Freckled Duck; Rose Robin; Painted Honeyeater

The 4 species marked in bold are relatively uncommon in the COG Area of Interest (COG AOI), the two 'pigments of the imagination' (ie Painted ....) particularly so.  Although the species is close to becoming an anual visitor to Kelly's Swamp in Fyshwick,  was extraordinary to find at least two Painted Snipe in a paddock full of Herefords in the middle of the Hoskinstown Plain.  Similarly while there was an unsuccesful attempt at breeding by Painted Honeyeaters at Urriara to have a sucessfull outcome at Hoskinstown was exceptional.

The other 3 'newbies' are by and large regulars in the COG which for some reason do like the Carwoola environment.

Of the 155 species for which comparison is possible, 19 have been recorded in every month throughout the 7 years (obviously including every month of 2013) These are:

• Australian Wood Duck; Galah; Sulphur-crested cockatoo; Crimson Rosella; Eastern Rosella; Laughing Kookaburra; White-eared Honeyeater; Noisy Miner; Willie wagtail; Magpie-lark; Welcome swallow; Yellow-rumped thornbill; White-throated treecreeper; Common starling; Grey butcherbird; Australian Magpie; Pied Currawong; Australian Raven; Little Raven.

For the 126 species recorded in 2013 which changed the proportion of months in which they were  recorded 98 (83.1%) showed an increase in the number of months in which they were recorded and 20 (16.9%) showed a decrease.  I shall return to an analysis of those numbers below, but a reconciliation tree diagram may be useful:

This is a broadly similar distribution to that compiled in 2012.  We had less additions (7) and more 'dips' (31) in 2013 and both the number of increasing species and decreasing species rose slightly.  Somehow this feels 'right' but I can't at this stage explain why.

The 31 species recorded in the prior 4 years which did not appear in 2012 were from the following broad groups:

Category	Count Of species
1 Waterbirds	5
2 Birds of Prey	2
3 Parrots and Relatives	4
4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds	8
5 Honeyeaters	4
6 Flycatchers and similar species	4
7 Thornbills, Finches and smiilar species	2
8 Other, smaller birds	1

With one exception the species not recorded have only been recorded in this area in one or two years in the past.  Thus it is no surprise that they were not recorded in 2013.  

The exception is the Black-winged Stilt.  This was found in large numbers in the Hoskinstown Plain Swamp in late 2012 and has been seen a few times on Foxlow Lagoon in the past.  The former water body has dried up, while the latter still has too much water to provide good habitat for Stilts.

A small surprise is the non-recording of Little Corella.  They are now very common in sme parts of Canberra and one would have thought the dry conditions this year would have suited this bird of the western Plains.  However the expected spread hasn't occurred.

It is pleasing to note the inclusion of Spotted Dove in the list of "not reported species".  As the species is being reported increasingly frequently in the urban area of Canberra I fear it is only a matter of time before we get a serious invasion.  If anyone spots one of these pests, please let me know asap.

Increasing species

There are 26 species recorded every month in 2012 which have been omitted at least once in earlier months.   With a 7 year series of observations I regard the 11 species only omitted once or twice as observer error (in most cases the missing period is early in the life of the project when I was the only observer!).   Most of the 15 other species in this group of 30 are cases where the increased number of observers in recent years has added to the completeness of reports.  This is particularly the case for Tawny Frogmouth, now reported every month from Whiskers Creek Rd since I am specifically searching on a daily basis for a resident family, while in the past observing these birds was serendipity.

At the other end of the spectrum 8 species were recorded in a single month in 2011 and  tend to appear in the list of 'increasers' as a statistical quirk since 1/12 > 1/46!  They are clearly unusual in the area and will not be considered further.

A group seen in  at least 6 months in 2011 for which an increase of at least 10% has been noted amounts to 47 species.  I can't offer a comment about all of these so what follows is 'picking the eyes out' of the list.

• A number of birds which include water in their habitat preferences are also included. As for last year a Hoskinstown Plain swamp has boosted the reporting of an number of species.   including Hoary-headed Grebe; Hardhead, White-necked Heron; and Black Swan.  Musk Duck have also been observable from the road overlooking Foxlow Lagoon
• Eastern Yellow Robin is usually thought of as a bird of the damp gullies.  The wet conditions of late 2010 and early 2011 led to a pair taking up residence at Whiskers Creek Rd.  They disappeared in early 2012 but reappeared in Spring of that year. Towards the end of 2013 they have bred in our garden.
• The group of birds which are adapted to grasslands have all been reported more frequently as a result of extra observer effort on the Plain.  This includes:
• Golden-headed Cisticola, Brown Songlark, Skylark; Australasian Pipit; 
• and Red-rumped Parrot.
• In the much same area large flocks of Australian Shelducks has been seen grazing on pasture or lucerne, and a Spotted Harrier has often been observed.

Decreasing Species

Only 5 species show a decline of >10%.  The largest drop was White-naped Honeyeater, for which I have no explanation.

The second most significant decrease is of Rock Dove: either

• someone has had pigeon pie; 
• the local Peregrine Falcons and Brown Goshawks have been more active. or
• someone has recently started shutting the door on their loft!

Fan-tailed Cuckoo is a migrant and an increase of 1 month of observations in 2012 would have moved this out of this group.

As indicated elsewhere in this series I consider Collared Sparrowhawk to have ben affected by reduced observer effort.  The final member of the group of 5 is Dusky Moorhen, which has always been scarce around the area.

Links to other sections.

Overall picture

Breeding Birds

2013 cf 2012