The Rainbow Bird
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Photo: Pauline Follett The Rainbow Bird Volume 5 Number 4 November 2016 Issue: 88 Contents 1. Cattle Egrets 11. Grey Plover 2. Tawny Frogmouths 12. Falcons 3. Wind Farms 13. Magpie Attacks Cattle Egrets 4. Leafless Ballart 14. Waterbirds as Parents th 5. Kelso Block 15. Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos On 20 September Jayna reported to the club that she had seen two Cattle Egrets in the paddock adjoining the Etiwanda 6. Owlet-Nightjar 16. Trip to Nelson wetlands. Cattle Egrets aren’t often seen in this district and are 7. Mallee Emu-Wrens 17. Passing of Barry McLean more often seen close to the coast. They are usually seen 8. Outing to Murray-Sunset 18. Declining Bird Numbers accompanying cattle. 9. Outing to Margooya Lagoon 19. Outing to Kelso Block Perhaps the small numbers of grazing cattle around these parts 10. Kemendok 20. Birds in Back yards aren’t sufficient to lure them north very often. It would seem 21. Club Calendar/ Sightings that they find paddocks that have a little surface water attractive. Tawny Frogmouths The coloured bird below is one of the birds Jayna saw and is in Tawny Frogmouths are relatively abundant nocturnal birds which, due to their flecked plumage, are not easily seen. When approached they, most commonly, partial breeding plumage. A bird in non-breeding plumage is all straighten their bodies by liftig their heads and this action, combined with the white. streaked markings on their feathers, makes them hard to distinguish from a broken limb. Golf courses are a favoured haunt of Tawny Frogmouths due to the existence of open fairways that are surrounded by trees. The trees provide a vantage point from which they can look for prey on the open parts of the golf course. Col. Stewart and other golfers at the Wentworth Golf Course found a pair last season and they have nested there again this year. Merbein Golf Club had resident frogmouths for many years. Red Cliffs Golf Club is very proud of its resident frogmouths. The pair that has roosted there for many years has moved across to the opposite side of the course to their historical nesting area to make way for another pair. One of this latter pair is, presumably, their offspring and this pair were nesting from late August. Apparently, both sexes incubate their eggs and feed each other at nesting time. BirdLife Mildura P. O. Box 1722, Mildura, VIC 3502 The Rainbow Bird Editors: Allan Taylor, [email protected] Finley Japp, [email protected] Wind Farms Leafless Ballart Or Leafless Cherry, Exocarpos aphyllus Roger mentioned, last night the 2nd August, about the impact that existing and proposed wind farms are having on birdlife. There is no doubt that birds and bats During the club’s outing to the Kelso Block, I mentioned that Gilbert’s are being killed by contact with the huge blades of windmills. Whistlers favour habitat which consists mainly of belar and leafless ballart. The birds use the tree (it is really little more than large bush) as cover when In order to get some idea of the extent of the problem, I had a quick look though they feel threatened. I think that they also nest in the bush. several internet websites. The subject was discussed on the ABC science show. A Recently Jayna found a Crested Bellbird’s nest in a small leafless cherry and this caused me to think back and I remembered that I had seen a lady who was hired by the Tasmanian Hydro authority to look into the matter similar bellbirds’nest in a ballart tree elsewhere in the Kelso Block. mentioned a report that was linked from the ABC website to that of the Hydro The Leafless Ballart or “cherry”gets its name from the small red fruit authority but, when I tried to access it, the report had gone. Perhaps there are which appear for a short while during spring/summer. I have seen Striped solid facts available but my cursory attempt didn’t unearth them. Honeyeaters eating the fruit and doubtless a number of other bird species will do so as well. The fruit of the related Native Cherry or Cherry Ballart My knowledge on the subject is almost nil but my understanding is that the was reportedly a delicacy for the aboriginal people and the plant was blades turn relatively slowly. I would have thought that expert fliers like birds and spread by means of birds eating the fruit. The pod of the fruit isn’t digested bats would have little trouble seeing and avoiding the turning blades. Bats, in by the bird and passes though it in a softened state that will, sometimes particular with their solar flying equipment are known to manoeuvre around germinate to produce a new tree. Apparently the sap of the Native Cherry each other and various other small objects in caves and the like in complete was used by the aboriginals as a remedy for snake bite poison. darkness. Both species of Ballart are semi-parasitic and their roots will seek out the roots of a host tree to gain nutrients that will supplement other food Perhaps it is the configuration of the various mills that constitute the farm that gathered up by their own roots. I have seen a leafess ballart tree growing cause the problem. Maybe the farm creates wind turbulence that unsettles the well away from any other tree but, on closer inspection, it became obvious that the original host tree had died. The ballart tree had outlived it. flight of the birds and bats. Another explanation is that the blades kill birds and Apparently, the ballart roots will send up a new tree if they are disturbed. bats that become unwary due to the stress caused when hunting prey or being Belar roots have a similar property. hunted. Yet another is that the sound waves or electrical discharge that the The “leaves” are actually branchlets and the actual leaves are simply small motors give off disorientate the birds and bats. scales that are, apparently, shed. Some people residing close to wind farms tell of having much stress due to something related to the turbines. At the same time, their neighbours don’t Kelso Block experience any adverse side-effects at all. It is hotly disputed by the experts that wind turbines create some sort of electrical field that can be heard or felt by The property that is now known as the “Kelso Block” is, in fact, the remainder of what was the Coomealla Station lease. Over the years, the humans. Coomealla Irrigation Area extended into it and the Buronga Hill Winery and Botanical Gardens have also been excised from it’s area. Of course, most of the experts don’t live adjacent to the farms. It is, sometimes, The lease was administered by the Western Lands Commission, as were a little too easy to dismiss claims of adverse health and nervous system most of the station properties in the Western Division of NSW. conditions as the result of hypochondria or over-imagination. I well remember The Western Division encompasses all the area in the far west of NSW and the effect that an electrical appliance had on me many years’ ago. In the early includes the towns of Balranald, Wentworth, Broken Hill, Cobar, days of computers we experienced a lot of trouble with electrical interference on Wanaaring, Bourke, Brewarinna and Tibooburra. the performance of the early computers which, at that time, didn’t have in-built The Western Lands Commission was set up to protect the pastoral filters to even out the flow of electricity from the wall switch to the computer. properties in the west from further degradation resulting from over- After much trouble, we came to the conclusion that we needed to buy a filter or stocking. When the Division was first settled by squatters in the mid- line conditioner which was then installed between the switch and the computer. 1800s, there were very few white people and the grazing holdings were The filter was quite large (to the extent that it was hard to lift) but worked away huge. For example the area that is now the Wentworth Shire was all day without us giving it any thought. At the close of day, it was switched off comprised of only Lake Victoria, Avoca, Para, Cuthero, Moorna, Bunnerungie, Tapio, Garnpang, and one or two other stations. with the computer and I can still remember the feeling of a heavy load being Weather conditions were, apparently, relatively good initially and large lifted off my shoulders at that time. It had, unknown to us, been affecting us to numbers of sheep were run on those properties. Pastures were eventually some extent all day. The “experts” denied that the power supply would affect degraded and when the large stations were later divided into smaller computers. In fact, though, I heard on some authority, that, at that time holdings, further land degradation occurred as the selectors/settlers Mildura’s TV station STV8 was put off the air by a power surge. endeavoured to make their smaller holdings viable. The inevitable droughts occurred in the 1890’s and the already degraded land became more so. Voltages delivered to the consumer vary all day and every day. It is not these The Western Lands Commission was set up as part of the NSW Lands variations that are any cause of concern. They are caused by the average needs Department to limit the over-grazing in the leases it was to control. Station of towns and consumers varying from time to time.