Annual Report 2015: overall picture

This is an overall report on birds observed in Carwoola in 2015.  I use the term Carwoola to cover the catchment area of the Stoney Creek Gazette,  As well as Carwoola itself (both the Queanbeyan and Palerang elements) 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 to 2014, 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.

The group of folk reporting has been quite stable this year (including the return of some observers) apart from the usual emptying out in Winter.  (We were away less than expected due to foul weather on the NSW North Coast and SE QLD.)  

By the end of 2015 we had recorded, over a 9 year period, 191 species in the catchment area of the Gazette.   5 species (Blue-billed Duck, Pink Robin, White-fronted Chat, Plumed Whistling Duck and Spotless Crake) were observed for the first time in 2015.  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 4 years and can probably be taken as the minimum number of resident species..

Over the 9 year period 94 species (49.2% of species observed) have been recorded undertaking breeding activity.  4 species (Laughing Kookaburra, Stubble Quail, Australian Reed-Warbler and Banded Lapwing) were recorded breeding for the first time in 2013.  The Banded Lapwings were observed copulating and a dependent chick was subsequently seen.  More details on breeding activity are provided in another post to this blog. 

The cumulative 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 2015, 156 species were recorded in the study area.  This is the highest number recorded in the study area and amounts to 81.6% 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 dried out in 2014 and the expected decline in diversity happened as a result.  It filled again in 2015 and attracted back some of the less common species.)  The weather for 2015 was variable but not too dry here so I can only assume that the continued increase in species found is mainly due to the efforts of observers to report interesting sightings to me.  I thank you all - may this continue.

In 2014 31.4% of the species recorded were observed undertaking some form of breeding activity.   After a decline in 2014 this value is close to that in other recent years in this area (data is somewhat deficient for the first two years). 

Links to other sections of this report

Breeding

Comparison with 2014

Comparison with previous 8 years