Northern Suburbs Branch 16 August 2023

Our speaker on the 16th of August was Dr Liz Kington, the coordinator of the WA Malleefowl Recovery Group. While Dr Kington may have drawn a smaller crowd than the Matildas on the same night, those who did attend were treated to a very informative introduction to the amazing life of the Malleefowl and the Australia-wide citizen science recovery monitoring project.

Dr Kington began her presentation with a 10-minute video by Dr Joe Benshemesh, aka Dr Malleefowl. This video made up of dozens of clips taken over many years, began with Dr Benshemesh explaining the Malleefowl is one of about 20 species of megapodes (big feet), all of which live in Australia or the islands just to the north of Australia.

However, it is the only one that lives in an arid environment. Later, Dr Kington revealed fossil evidence from central Australia of distant relatives of these birds dating back to the Late Oligocene, 26-24 million years ago. The video then led us through the bonding rituals of the Malleefowl, the cooperative building of a mound, the gathering of leaf litter and, after a significant fall of rain has saturated the leaf-litter, and the covering of the mound with sand to let the vegetable matter rot, thereby releasing heat.

This is followed by daily checking of the sand to ascertain if it is at the correct temperature before the female lays her many eggs, about three times the size of a domestic hen egg. She lays one egg about every three days for several months. Then followed clips of the amazing amount of work, usually by the male, that goes into maintaining the internal temperature of the mound at 33 degrees centigrade. We later learnt from Dr Kington the birds use their beaks to somehow measure the temperature, one theory being they achieve this by feeling the warmth of sand grains on their tongue.

The video ended with clips of the young fledglings popping out of the sand, sliding down the slope and taking off into the bush without any involvement of, or even recognition, by the parents who blissfully went on with tending the mound. An amazing escape from as much as a metre underground.

However, while the hatching rate is high, the longer-term survival rate may be as low as 5%. This is due to several factors, including the fledglings needing parental care or instruction on food gathering and the need to find food and water within the first few days.

If birds survive, there is still the threat of predators, wildfires and, in the future, climate change, particularly decreased rainfall.

Dr Kington introduced us to the WA monitoring programme, part of a coordinated citizen science project across southern Australia. The project has been continuous for 30 years so that trends can be established, and mound activity can be monitored to review the conservation status under the EPBC Act.

In 1990, only 424 mounds in 10 sites, all in South Australia and Victoria, were being monitored. By 2017, this had grown to 106 sites with 3420 mounds; in 2022, 3858 mounds were monitored. Unfortunately, the population numbers for both Western Australia and Australia are trending downwards, with a particularly large drop in WA since around 2000 despite the significant increase in the number of sites being monitored.

Dr Kington extolled the benefits of joining the WA Malleefowl Recovery Group. In addition to camaraderie and great outdoor environments, participants get to use up-to-date technology and be part of a citizen science project to protect a nationally vulnerable species. For example, last year, over a weekend in October, 25 volunteers surveyed 149 mounds at the Red Moort Reserve, a Bush Heritage Australia property located about 40km south of Ongerup.

Don Poynton