PastoralPastoral MEMOMEMO Copyright © Western Australian Agriculture Authority, 2009 MEMOMEMO Northern Pastoral Region December 2009 ISSN 1033-5757 Vol. 30, No. 4 EDITOR: Matthew Fletcher Phone: (08) 9166 4019 PO Box 19, Kununurra WA 6743 Email: [email protected] CONTENTS Birds of our rangelands – how healthy is your property? ...................................................................... 3 Hello Northern Rangelanders ................................................................................................................ 6 Linking land condition to economic returns – the cost of degradation ................................................... 7 WARMS monitoring and self-assessment monitoring methods .......................................................... 11 Monitoring method for pastoral self-assessment and reporting .......................................................... 12 Know your pasture plants .................................................................................................................... 14 Destocking captures more carbon, but does it pay? ........................................................................... 16 The burning issue – using fire as a tool in the Kimberley .................................................................... 19 Trialling check banks to stop gully erosion .......................................................................................... 22 Breeding EDGE opportunity in the Kimberley and Pilbara .................................................................. 23 Imported horses must meet post-entry liver fluke quarantine requirements........................................ 24 Learn to pregnancy test – courses available in the Kimberley ............................................................ 25 ESRM to begin property planning and on-ground works in the Fortescue River catchment ............... 26 Claim the date!‘Rain on the Rangelands’ Conference– Bourke, NSW, September 2010 .................... 27 Invasive prickly weed discovered in the East Kimberley ..................................................................... 28 Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee – an update ..................................................................... 29 Baiting feral pigs in the Kimberley ....................................................................................................... 31 Increase in Kimberley chemical subsidy for declared plant control ..................................................... 33 Update to all members of the Kimberley Rangelands Biosecurity Association Inc. ............................. 34 Cattle Market Update – 4 December 2009 ..........................................................................................35 Visit http://www.agric.wa.gov.au PASTORAL MEMO – NORTHERN PASTORAL REGION DECEMBER 2009 Chance of exceeding median rainfall December 2009 – February 2010 Median rainfall December to February, based on 105 years of data (1900–2005) Based on 105 years of data 1900 to 2005 Please check the address label on your publication. If it is incorrect or if you would like to be included on our mailing list, let us know! Disclaimer This material has been written for Western Australian conditions. Its availability does not imply suitability to other areas, and any interpretation or use is the responsibility of the user. Mention of product or trade names does not imply recommendation, and any omissions are unintentional. Recommendations were current at the time of preparation of the original publication. Front page photo courtesy of Michael Jeffery, Derby 2 http://www.agric.wa.gov.au PASTORAL MEMO – NORTHERN PASTORAL REGION DECEMBER 2009 BIRDS OF OUR RANGELANDS – HOW HEALTHY IS YOUR PROPERTY? Andrew Huggett and Kevin Marshall Why we need birds For more than 5000 years birds have been used to supply us with food, clothing, medicine, sport, and quiet enjoyment. The ancient Egyptians used birds to help indicate the time to sow and harvest crops, the quality of water supplies, and the health of soil and vegetation. Another highly advanced civilisation—the Inca of the South American Andes—understood how the farming cycle was connected to nature and could ‘read’ the health of their land from signs provided by birds and other animals. Today, we depend on birds for many services, from canaries detecting poisonous gases in underground mines to the control of pests and diseases in crops and the pollination of many economically valuable plants. Many people, including farmers, attach high value to individual bird species such as Malleefowl and Bush Stone-curlew in Western Australia and Seriema (or Road Runner—known as the farmer’s friend because of its control of damaging crop insects and taste for rodents and snakes) in Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina. Birds as indicators and planning tools Recent work in the northern WA wheatbelt has shown just how important some birds can be as indicators for the health of our farming landscapes and as tools for their restoration. In the Buntine– Marchagee Natural Diversity Recovery Catchment—a 180 000 ha area threatened by secondary salinity between Coorow, Wubin and Dalwallinu—six species of declining small woodland and shrubland birds have been used to design and implement a strategic, long-term revegetation and habitat restoration program. These are birds that are unable to cross gaps between remnants of more than about 400–1000 metres and depend on large enough (i.e. 40 ha or more) high quality habitat fenced off from stock for their survival and reproduction. Over 522 000 trees and shrubs have been planted at key sites on farms in the catchment since 2004 while more than 150 ha of priority remnants have been fenced (Plate 1). The project was recently highly commended by the Society for Ecological Restoration International. Many of you reading this article will have observed birds on your ‘patch’ and how they use different resources. For example, you may have noticed how many different bird species use your cattle troughs as watering points in increasingly dry times (Plate 2). Their very presence on your property can indicate just how well your land is faring in providing food, water, shelter and breeding sites for bird species that may be in decline or threatened elsewhere (such as in the wheatbelt). This can also be an indirect measure of how you are performing as a manager of natural resources. In the southern rangelands, several bird species can be used to indicate both the quality of habitat on your property and the overall health and performance of your farming operation. These include a number of threatened and near-threatened birds (e.g. Malleefowl, Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo, Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo, Bush Stone-curlew, Australian Bustard, Peregrine Falcon—Plates 3–4) and declining woodland and shrubland birds (e.g. Gilbert’s Whistler, Southern Scrub-robin, Varied Sittella, Regent Parrot—Plates 5–6). These species require either hollow tree branches or sufficient shrub or mallee cover for nesting and protection from predators. Some forage for insects on the ground or along bark-covered branches. http://www.agric.wa.gov.au 3 PASTORAL MEMO – NORTHERN PASTORAL REGION DECEMBER 2009 Plate 1—An 80 metre-wide by 1.2 km-long wildlife linkage planted in 2004 on a farm at Wubin in the northern wheatbelt to Plate 2—Flocks of Zebra Finch at a trough in the connect two key remnants for threatened and declining bush Gascoyne. (Photo: Kevin Marshall) birds. (Photo: Andrew Huggett) Plate 5—Southern Scrub-robin – a Plate 3—Malleefowl – a nationally declining shrubland bird that threatened ground-dwelling bird of Plate 4—Bush Stone-curlew – a vulnerable species in WA, extinct in requires at least 29 ha of heath/ mallee in the southern rangelands and shrub/mallee with gaps between wheatbelt. (Photo: B&B Wells/DEC) much of the wheatbelt through habitat loss and fox predation. these patches of no more than (Photo: Wikipedia) 1 km in Buntine–Marchagee Recovery Catchment. (Photo: B&B Wells/DEC) Plate 7—Large numbers of Plate 6—Regent Parrot (Smoker) – Budgerigar irrupt in the wheatbelt parrot requiring hollow tree rangelands after good rains. branches for nesting, moves north (Photo: Kevin Marshall) and inland after good rains. (Photo: Graeme Chapman) Plate 8—Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters forage in flowering Plate 10—The Scarlet-chested Grevillea, Banksia and other nectar- Parrot is a nomad of mallee producing plants across parts of the and other eucalypt woodland in wheatbelt and rangelands. Plate 9—A bird found across many the southern rangelands. (Photo: Arthur Grosset) inland and coastal habitats is the (Photo: Stan Sindel) Common Bronzewing. (Photo: Kevin Marshall) 4 http://www.agric.wa.gov.au PASTORAL MEMO – NORTHERN PASTORAL REGION DECEMBER 2009 In the northern rangelands, some bird species are direct indicators of exceptional seasonal conditions. For example, wet seasons that only occur once in several years, numbers of the common Crimson Chat, Zebra Finch, Cockatiel and Budgerigar (Plate 7) can explode as multiple nestings occur in response to the favourable conditions. Across the northern and southern rangelands, the presence of small insect-eating, ground-dwelling passerines can indicate healthy native vegetation and pasture condition. Stable numbers of species such as Crimson Chat, Orange Chat, Variegated, Splendid, and White-winged Fairy-wrens, Thick- billed Grasswren, Brown Songlark, Red-capped Robin, and Australasian Pipit indicate adequate supply of insects and