Birding on Whiskers Creek Rd

I enter the records I personally collect into eBird Australia (which links to the international eBird project run by the Cornell University Ornithology programme).  The Australian venture has offered a challenge this year inviting birders to achieve goals under 5 headings.

a) The Prolific eBirder: submits many eligible lists in the year (Gold: 200; Silver: 100; Bronze: 50 lists).
b) The Consistent eBirder: submits at least one eligible list in many weeks of the year (Gold: 50; Silver: 40; Bronze: 30 weeks). Each week starts on Saturday, and partial weeks count too, so there are in fact 54 eligible weeks in 2016!
c) The Adventurous eBirder: submits eligible lists from many different locations in the year (Gold: 100; Silver: 50; Bronze: 25 different locations).
d) The Faithful eBirder: submits many eligible lists from a single location in the year (Gold: 50; Silver: 25; Bronze: 12 lists at a single location).
e) The Dedicated eBirder: spends many hours birding during the year (Gold: 200; Silver 100; Bronze: 50 hours).

When they last sent round a report on people's progress (late June this year) I had already achieved the annual Gold standard for criteria a and c and was pro-rata across the line on criteria b and e.  However criterion d was a bit of a worry because I don't report to eBird for our house block, for which my observations go through the COG Garden Bird Survey (GBS).

I concluded that the best solution to kicking criterion d along was to do at least 1 count a day on Whiskers Creek Rd (WCR) which we traverse for one purpose or another most days.  I was a little concerned that this might be a slight bias in data towards this site, but concluded:

1. If them's the rules them is what I am going to follow, and 
2. It would be interesting to see what comes out of the intensive exercise.

This main part of this post is a summary of point 2.  Before getting to that a definition of the site and my observation methods is appropriate.

Another prelude: I ended up achieving all 5 goals, as did about 40 other birders Australia-wide.  That led to a random draw of all those who met the criteria.   I won, thus becoming "eBirder of the Year" and getting a copy of the Australian Bird Guide signed by the 6 authors!!!!!

Methods

My first eBird survey of the area was on 14 February 2015.  I started the intensive phase that is the main topic of this post on 18 August 2016 and got to my goal - 50 checklists in 2016 - on 9 September 2016.

Here is a mud map from Google Earth (GE) with the red outline broadly representing the area from which I can hear or see birds.  The straight white line is WCR.

The area within the polygon is very close to 50Ha (also according to GE).  

I didn't always cover the whole polygon: depending upon circumstances I sometimes took a stationary count for 10 minutes at points 1, 2 or 3.   Most commonly I walked 1.2km, from the edge of my GBS site up to WCR  and along to the junction with Widgiewa Rd and then returned making separate records each way.  At other times I might only cover part of the distance.

Results

My major project in this area covers a far larger area (roughly 20,000 Ha) to compile a monthly report for the local community.  Over close to 10 years of recording I and other residents have recorded 190 species of birds in the larger area.  In the 18 months I have been making observations of the WCR area  area I have recorded on eBIRD 66 species in the area (a list is at the end of this post) equivalent to 33% of those seen in the larger area.  (That being said, on reviewing the list I am aware of several other species seen in WCR that I haven't, for one reason or another, recorded on eBird: Shime, Shime.)

The length of the WCR list quite surprised me as WCR is not what I would consider to be high quality birding habitat being a mixture of Eucalypt woodland (with a Kunzea ericoides/Joycea pallida understorey) and pasture.  One large dam is visible from the road at point 3.  

In 2016 I have recorded 53 of the WCR species, of which 39 (61% of those ever recorded in WCR and 20% of the larger area) have been recorded in the intensive period of August and September.  The intensive period has added 6 species to the WCR list.  All of these 'extras' are species expected in the WCR area and it must be only happenstance that I hadn't logged them earlier.

Of the 39 species 5 are regarded by COG as migrants.  Thus the period of intensive activity has added a little to knowledge of when these species returned.  Looking at this a little further:

• it is interesting that Pallid Cuckoo was recorded 5 times in August but only twice in September, whereas Fan-tailed Cuckoo was not recorded in this project until September.  (The records - kept on a weekly basis-  for the GBS show Fan-tailed Cuckoo as having arrived in early August  this year whereas Pallid Cuckoo only arrived at the end of the month: As every academic report concludes "More research is needed.")
• the other 3 species - Olive-backed Oriole, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike and Yellow-faced Honeyeater - all  returned in August and were also seen several times in September.  The call of the Yellow-faced Honeyeater in particular is heard every day.

On average during the intensive period I recorded 8 species per survey, ranging from 5 to 13 species per checklist.  I can't identify any significant explanatory factors behind the variation.

Looking at the major groups of birds I have used for my "Birds of Carwoola" project, the following comments are offered:

• Waterbirds: Only 11% of the species reported in the larger area reported during the intensive period.  As well as the limited water features available in WCR the recent wet weather has caused many waterbirds to leave even the larger area,
• Birds of Prey: Only 1 species reported in WCR in the intensive phase while 16 have been seen in the larger area over the full 10 years.  Raptors have been hard to come by in the larger area in recent months.
• Parrots etc: 6 species - 50% of  'possibles' recorded during the intensive period.  3 of those only recorded in the larger area have only been reported in WCR once and the habitat is not suitable for a fourth species.
• Kingfishers and other non-songbirds: Only 3 of 30 species in the larger area have been reported in the intensive period.  A major factor in this is the number of migrant species which have not yet returned.
• Honeyeaters: 5 of 16 species were recorded in the intensive period.  Given the absence of blossom and insect food sources that isn't too surprising.  I would also regard 8 species as unusual in the larger area and the remaining 3, 2  are migrants which haven't returned yet.
• Flycatchers and similar species: very much under-represented in the intensive period.  Many of the MIAs are migrants which have yet to return.
• Thornbills Finches etc, and Other Smaller Birds: both well under-represented, mainly because: 
• the habitat is not really suited for them; and
• they are not possible to identify, without extreme effort, when they are skulking silently under dense Kunzea scrub.
• Other Larger birds: 7 of 8 possibles recorded (the 8th - Satin Bowerbird - is very unusual in this part of the larger area).

Conclusions

 The exercise has been very interesting.  From my view this has been largely because it has caused me to think about what has been recorded on WCR (and perhaps more importantly what has not been recorded but has been seen there).

It has pointed out significantly the importance of migration and timing in assessing the diversity of birding in an area, which will lead me to invest further time in recording birds here to fill in the blanks in the calendar.  (There are 5 months with no records for the site.)  This is presumably the intention of including this category in the challenges.

The need for further research is quite valid, and could include further investigation of:

• possible explanations of why some species are recorded in the area and others not; 
• changes between seasons; and
• changes between years.

The prerequisite to any of that is of course getting further data!

Species list

Birds seen in the intensive phase are highlighted in green (residents) or orange (migrants).

1  Waterbirds (pt 1):  (pt 2); (Pt 3); (Pt 4): Australian Wood Duck;  Pacific Black Duck; Hardhead; Australasian Grebe; White‑faced Heron; Eurasian  Coot; Masked Lapwing; 

2 Birds of Prey:  Whistling Kite, Brown Goshawk; Collared Sparrowhawk;

3 Parrots and Relatives:  Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo; Gang‑gang Cockatoo; Galah;  Sulphur‑crested Cockatoo; Australian King‑parrot; Crimson Rosella; Eastern Rosella

4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds (Pt 1) (Pt 2) (Pt 3): Common Bronzewing; Crested Pigeon; Horsfield's Bronze‑Cuckoo; Shining Bronze‑cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Fan‑tailed Cuckoo;  Southern Boobook; Laughing Kookaburra; Rainbow Bee‑eater; Dollarbird;

5 Honeyeaters: Eastern Spinebill; Yellow-faced Honeyeater; White-eared Honeyeater; Noisy Miner; Red Wattlebird; Brown‑headed Honeyeater; White-naped Honeyeater; Noisy Friarbird; 

6 Flycatchers and similar species: Golden Whistler; Rufous Whistler; Grey Fantail; Willie Wagtail; Magpie-lark; Scarlet Robin; Welcome Swallow; Tree Martin

7 Thornbills, Finches and similar species (Pt 1) (Pt 2):  Superb Fairy-wren; White-browed Scrubwren; Speckled warbler; Weebill; Striated Thornbill; Yellow‑rumped Thornbill; Buff‑rumped Thornbill; Brown Thornbill; Spotted Pardalote; Striated Pardalote; Silvereye; House Sparrow; European Goldfinch

8 Other, smaller birds:  White-throated Treecreeper; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike;  Olive‑backed Oriole; Dusky Woodswallow; Common Myna; Common Starling; 

9  Other, larger birds: Grey Butcherbird; Australian Magpie; Pied Currawong; Grey Currawong; Australian Raven; Little Raven; White-winged Chough