How Can You Go Birdwatching in Your Local Area?

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The Glossy Black Conservancy is currently looking for volunteers to assist with annual monitoring efforts throughout the north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland region. Monitoring routinely takes place via the annual Birding Day, with events held in May or October in alternating years. In addition to this members of the community are encouraged to report sightings of Glossy Black-Cockatoo outside of these specific event days through the online reporting system.

The Glossy Black Conservancy has various training programs and activities that emphasise Community Awareness and education about the the birds. You may wish to contact some of the local councils to express your interest in awareness activities.

 

Go bird-watching in your local area

Glossy Black-Cockatoos are quite widespread but use habitats that provide sufficient foraging resources for them. Target these areas and look and listen for the signs of the species, such as chew marks on fallen she-oak cones (orts) and the distinctive sound of cockatoos chewing on the seeds.You can report sightings of birds as well as feeding evidence using the online reporting system.

 

Protect the habitat of the Glossy Black-Cockatoo

If you have she-oaks on your property – don’t clear them, they may provide important feeding resources for Glossy Black-Cockatoos now as well as into the future. Glossy Black-Cockatoo are know to return to reliable feeding sites and even specific trees so make sure to retain these trees and surrounding roosting habitat. You can also contribute by planting up new trees to provide resources that might be lost in other areas through ongoing development. See your garden, school grounds or local regeneration site as habitat for the cockatoo and plant Glossy Black-Cockatoo food trees. The property can be big or small, size does not matter.

Habitat trees for roosting and nesting are also particularly important, especially those large old eucalyptus with big hollows. Try and retain these trees and keep an eye out to see what animals might be using the hollows. While it is possible to install nest boxes these efforts should not be undertaken without due consideration of issues such as the density of natural hollows in the area, the types of species that might make use of the nest boxes, what type of nest box monitoring program will be undertaken. Nest boxes have certainly been used to good effect in some areas to assist with the recovery of Glossy Black-Cockatoo populations (e.g. Kangaroo Island), but these efforts are supported by intensive monitoring programs.

 

Start, or become involved in a local cockatoo friends group

Improving our knowledge of local populations of Glossy Black-Cockatoo will give us a better understanding of the performance of the regional population of cockatoo. There are already some well known areas that have regular sightings being reported by groups of dedicated observers but there could be others, they may simply not have been found yet. If you’re interested in getting to know your local birds in a bit more detail the Glossy Black Conservancy can provide some suggestions as to how to develop a monitoring program for your local birds.

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4 responses to “How Can You Go Birdwatching in Your Local Area?”

  1. I have been a birdwatcher all over Australia-. I found night parrots west of Cloncurry around 1990.When we moved South in 2000 g. b cockatoos used to visit the trees on our aquerage block but it is 5 years since any have appeared.

  2. When walking in casuarina groves it’s helpful to listen for quiet crunching sounds. If approached slowly and quietly, glossies will often let you get reasonably close while they continue feeding – close enough to determine their gender.

    We see a family of three in different parts of the Noosa National Park, alerted by feeding sounds or their call, less piercing and raucous than the yellow-tailed black cockatoos that frequent the park as well. We feel privileged, but very concerned for the future of our local glossy population because of proposed development in the few feeding grounds left in this area.

  3. Hi, I regularly hear and see pairs of Glossy black cockatoos feeding for hours in casuarinas in the Newcastle area. I usually report them through inaturalist.
    Do you pickup these sightings for your studies or should I enter them separately?
    They have become more common in the last two years.

    1. Hi Karen,
      Thanks for reaching out.
      That’s a really great question. Conservancy partners are currently in discussions with other stakeholders about this very matter. We are determined to ensure all recordings are where they need to be so decision makers have the information they need, especially regarding land planning. We are working toward a national strategy.
      For now, we are using the Birdata platform with the intent to share our data with other platforms used by governments.
      I would suggest that inaturalist is a good place to record your sightings without having to double up on other platforms.
      Thanks again and keep up the great work!

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