How I found out the bowerbirds had returned was actually a little embarrassing. I’d left Brisbane at 4.30am without breakfast (just a bottle of iced coffee and a few corn chips along the way), picked up birding guests from the Gold Coast and headed up to O’Reilly’s. I’d been there and to Binna Burra 2 weeks ago and seen one female regent at OR and 3 satins at BB, but not the numbers you’d expect in the warmer months. I’d explained this to my guests and – because I was hungry – grabbed a big handful of corn chips to chew on my way around the treetop walk. Suddenly a male regent bowerbird flew towards the lodge, and in excitement I called my guests and raced over there. Suddenly there were three regent bowerbirds on my arm and flying off with my chips. A staff member came out and started feeding them with sultanas, and a couple of extra birds landed on me and grabbed at my chips. I got a lecture on not feeding inappropriate foods. I’m not sure he believed me when I said it was accidental, and i didn’t really get a chance to explain that I always warn our guests of this, have written papers and given several talks on the same topic and wrote the feeding policy for the WTA website.
Anyway, the satins and regents are back in some numbers now at O’R, having hardly seen any over winter. Only a few seem to have arrived at BB so far, but it shoudn’t be long before we’re seeing them regularly there as well
Ronda Green, BSc(Hons) PhD Araucaria Ecotours http://www.learnaboutwildlife.com http://www.facebook.com/AraucariaEcotours Chair Wildlife Tourism Australia: http://wildlifetourism.org.au Chair Scenic Rim Wildlife: http://scenicrim.wildlife.org.au/ Honorary research fellow Griffith University
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