Darling Range Branch, 14 March 2025

This was one of the key messages that Dr Rochelle Steven presented to the Darling Range Branch meeting on Friday, 14 March 2025. Many of these two species exist due to the many nectar-rich plants (especially hybrid Grevilleas) that people plant in urban gardens. These flowers flower almost all year round, produce no seed, and serve only to encourage bully birds like those named above, to the exclusion of most of the smaller birds.

Before urbanisation, a place like the Swan Coastal Plain would have had many different habitat types. In contrast, nowadays, it is full of simple, homogeneous gardens that do not serve any kind of diversity. That’s where all our bird species would have been, and Dr Rochelle commented,

Gardens are, therefore, very important in the fight to save our birds.

In urban areas, there are many threats to birds. These include:

1. Pets. Domestic cats are believed to take more than 60 million birds per year across Australia. Dr Rochelle showed us a startling video of a domestic cat taking a small bird in flight as it approached a bird bath. Birds may avoid areas where dogs are kept.
2. Declining insects. The widespread use of pesticides is mostly to blame here. Artificial lights (around sports fields, for example) also take a heavy toll, and increasingly, climate change.
3. Rodenticide poisoning of raptors. The so-called second-generation rodenticides are a big problem. A poisoned rodent is very poisonous to a hungry owl. Hygiene in the garden is a better way to control rats—we need to clean up fallen fruit and other garden waste and look after our chooks!
4. Window strikes most commonly affect migrant birds, especially cuckoos and kingfishers. One useful technique for preventing this is not cleaning your windows. The audience approved of this method.
5. Gardens should be designed to feed and shelter all birds. Things to consider include species composition and plant structure (small, medium, large, foliage and branches from the ground up). And year-round flowering cultivars should be avoided. Trees are very important for many smaller birds. The Western Gerygone, the Striated Pardalote, and the Weebill will all disappear without trees.

Dr Rochelle pointed out that our vast urban sprawl across the northeastern suburbs, with their uniform bland gardens, makes us a prime target for invasion by the Yellow-throated Miner. The eastern state equivalent, the Noisy Miner, has taken over much of suburban Brisbane, where it has simply displaced most of the smaller birds.

Thanks to Dr Rochelle. That was a very informative, lively, and well-received talk delivered with skill and some well-placed humour. We all need to help push this message out into the ‘burbs.

Mike Green