Author: Richard King

From everyone’s comments, I agree it’s probably a whole group of factors, especially the RSPB being very active in the UK. I still think it’s more a regional issue, with Australians caring less due to other local factors. I have read somewhere many years ago, that some of the factors why Australians don’t relate to the environment are the harsh generally hot climate, mostly nocturnal animals and tough spiky plants. In other words, none of the soft very green plants and moist inviting environments of Europe, the long distances to some places causing feelings of remoteness and isolation, probably also not helping.

I also agree with Peter, that access to wildlife or birding areas doesn’t seem to be a problem most of the time, and if people want to get involved in saving wildlife there are many opportunities around. The internet abounds with stuff.

I’m not sure Simon that I have understood your survey details, but a response of 1015 from 80 000 seems very low, that saying to me again people don’t ‘care’. Saying 75% do care, from the few responses, doesn’t seem valid. There is a huge difference between someone saying they ‘want to see amazing wildlife’ and actually ‘caring’! Caring involves action of some type, generally a heart attitude. Most of the people I meet and know, love seeing wildlife, but none that I’m aware of actually do anything like care or want to! I’ve taken many people birding who have really enjoyed it, but not become birders or joined any groups! Some after being told that this birding ‘area’ is threatened, just respond with a ‘shame about that’.

At the end of the day, the wildlife environment is like climate change, we know things are going to go from bad to worse, but no one will do anything until it’s well too late (probably already is!). All of us will just have to adapt to what’s left.

Richard King

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Hi All,

I agree with Debbie, that most Aussies don’t really care about our animals or environment generally, maybe only about some cute ones, like koalas etc. The vast majority of people don’t understand even the basic ecological principles, sadly even after years of David Attenborough shows and others. I think, sadly we often think they do (or hope they do), because we are involved with a circle of people who do care and understand, either colleagues involved with wildlife or those who visit nature reserves on a regular basis. This probably clouds the way the community really is! I can only go by what I see and hear from my non-wildlife friends, family and local community, generally they know very little and care little, the environment’s nice and should be saved, but as long as it doesn’t upset my lifestyle and I’m busy anyway!

Birding organisations (and others) in Australia in promoting birds and environment have dropped the ball for far too long, we have missed at least, a whole generation of school kids, who love technology, but not the natural world. The community hasn’t helped with removing many places (wetlands etc) or stopping kids going to places, where the love for natural things grows. Mobile phones and computers have filled the void.

After lots of travel to the UK, I also see a different attitude and mentality in Australia to wildlife. Maybe it’s the cold harsh winters over there where people are forced to read books inside or watch TV, and often are more interested in wildlife, plus the British attitude of ‘ this is our British wildlife, so we will look after it, God save the Queen’. I know they have their environmental problems too, but more people are in some way interested enough in wildlife to do things, the RSPB has over a million members alone! What I see of Australia sadly, is a country where, probably due to our better climate among many factors, promotes a huge interest in sport and being outside. More of an attitude of ‘let’s have a barbie’ and ‘she’ll be right mate’. Australia, I think is one of the best countries in the world, but our general attitude is rebellious (from our convict beginnings?) and just out to have a good time, without considering future implications. I know not all Aussie are like this, but to me this does appear to be the ‘general spirit’ of Australia concerning many issues and I’m not sure how it will change, at least not in the short term.

Regards,

Richard king

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Hi All,

I know I’m probably opening a huge can of worms and may get my arse kicked, but here we go.

We often seem to get upset with governments (or other groups) who don’t protect the environment and rightly so, and I do agree that most of the time much, much more can be done! I also see that all governments in Australia and worldwide are under huge pressures from citizens and other countries to provide resources and facilities (I in no way support hunting in parks or other areas). The real issue, especially now, is our ever increasing human population in Australia and again worldwide. A recent article I read, said that now the world population is increasing by about 200 new humans born each second (that’s after human deaths per second are taken into account). We have already passed needing 1.6 planets to survive, totally unsustainable!

Resources (mineral, water, food) are dwindling and any areas, including national parks, will have to be destroyed if it is necessary to get them. Every one of those new 6000+ humans (by the time you read this email) will need more new resources and facilities. Perth, I’ve heard last week is going to increase by at least 500 000 in the next ten years, a city that is already severely short of water, bad transport and the list goes on. We live in a desert continent, so for us in Australia, water, food and resources, not to mention providing all the facilities people want, is going to be a nightmarish problem!

Sorry to sound so dark, but there does not seem to be any quick solution to these problems, the wonderful natural areas we love will have to be destroyed or at least modified and degraded. Our protected and loved natural areas can only exist if we have a ‘comfortable’ modern life, think of it, if Coles or Woolworths ran out of food, wouldn’t you go hunt as much native wildlife as you can find, even in national parks, to provide food for yourself and family? I believe this is already happening on a subtle worldwide scale, resources are running out and the world is hungry, time to plunder what’s left, unfortunately it’s often in our ‘protected’ areas. It will only get worse and faster.

Generally most people only care about the environment (if at all), when there bellies are full and other needs met. We are only able to spend time birding and enjoying the natural environment, because we don’t have to spend all our time growing food and trying just to use the environment (eg. hunting birds) to survive.

Over population is the real problem (look at the extinct civilization of Easter Island) for many of our environmental and other problems, but I’m not sure if we will deal with it or are even able to. How do you tell members of your own family to stop having more than 2 kids, or other families wanting to? How do you stop immigration or genuine refugees? The answer is you really can’t (for moral, freedom of choice or other reasons), so the environment and our lifestyles will have to change and probably degrade. Sadly, I think the ‘big crunch’ for humanity will come (fairly soon and very rapidly) and the last remaining natural environments will be the first to go.

Regards (I won’t say cheers),

Richard King

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I have recently bought the Nikon P150 and used it on holidays in Thailand. It was unplanned buy (not something I normally do) at Perth airport duty free, but our older Lumix started playing up and was probably going to be a real pain over the holiday.

The recent Thailand pictures on my blog site, were mostly taken with the P150. http://wazoologist.blogspot.com.au/

I found it to be a good compact holiday camera with a great long lens, of course nowhere near the league of a good DSLR, but it’s fast and it’s easy to use and works well for what it is. The drawbacks are that you do need some type support (tree, monopod or small tripod) when the lens is at maximum, especially as with most compact cameras the screen/view finder go black for a ‘second’, ending up with a shot of the bird’s feet! At maximum, the focus is poor, especially in low light, which can be very frustrating. An example was, I had a Gould’s Frogmouth about ten feet away under a light rainforest tree canopy, the camera wouldn’t focus until the birding guide shone he’s headlamp on it. The small focus rectangle in Program Mode doesn’t appear to be the only focusing area, as the camera often focuses on the background. Having said all this, there are ways around these issues.

It has a nice feel, but does look a little plastic, but in Chiltern Victoria last month, I did accidentally drop it on the hard ground and it still seems to work fine!

I think it’s a good compact camera, especially with it’s fantastic long lens, great for quick wildlife shots, if you don’t want to lug an DSLR and all the long heavy lens and tripod around. Even if you do, it’s a great small backup camera to have with you on holidays if something happens to your primary gear.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Richard King

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Thanks Steve for the info on the new apps.

It’s an exciting time as technology progresses (and more apps appear), birders will be able to have whole libraries of field guides and other books on one Ipad. Great if you’re travelling to a number of different countries on one holiday! Field guides will still come along with me, but at least I won’t have to carry so many of them.

Hopefully the pictures will get a bit better on apps, instead of the current rather non-lifelike ones at the moment.

Cheers,

Richard king

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Hi All,

I’m heading from Perth to cold and wet Chiltern next week for some birding, mainly looking for Regent Honeyeaters, Swift Parrots, Powerful Owl, Chestnut-rumped Heathwren and Spotted Quail-thrush. I know White-throated Nightjar and Painted Honeyeater would be a long shot for this time of year, but I live in hope!

I’m also planning on heading to Boweya, Killawarra and Warby areas, and if time allows over to the Barmah area for Superb Parrots. I’ve found lots of info about some of the more popular birding sites in the areas, but was wondering if anyone has any recent specific info about where these birds may be found in the area, plus any spots with good flowering gums at the moment? Any other interesting current bird info for the area would be also much appreciated.

Thanks for the help.

Cheers,

Richard King

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Hi All,

It seems I’ve started a passionate forum discussion, just by posting some current information that I thought birders might like to know.

I think some birders may not have understood what I was saying.

Gurney’s pitta will probably head into extinction in Thailand, whether you go to see it or not. The ‘disturbances’ I was speaking about are, besides climate change, illegal clearing of vegetation, illegal hunting, forest fragmentation and of course increased visitors (visiting Emerald Pool) and more facilities. The biggest immediate impact on Gurney’s pitta at the moment is selfish photographers, lots of them. As usual, as an animal becomes rare, a photo (or collecting it) becomes a lot more desirable.

I fully support sustainable birdwatching of Gurney’s Pitta! Why? Because it’s often the only hope the bird has. The bird guide Yotin (and other Thai guides), the Morakot Resort and numerous other locals (including park rangers) obtain an income from visiting birders. They are usually the only ones fighting to keep the birds there (whether for income or love of the birds). Yotin in particular has done much to protect Gurney’s and the other wildlife in the park. I don’t think many of us here in Australia have done much to protect Gurney’s!

Unfortunately in this current age, you want to protect something, you better provide some economic benefit!

When we watched the 2 Gurney’s Pittas from about 15 metres away, they just went about their business, feeding in the leaf litter before slowly moving away. That’s sustainable birding! Minimal impact, no taped calls, no feeding, just coming across the birds and watching them.

As for personal safety, the Gurney’s area is fine. If you read my email properly, you will see I’m referring to the birding areas south, near the Malaysian border. I’m just trying to stop some unaware birder getting his head blown off!

Regards, Richard King

Hi All,

I have just returned from birding for 13 days in southern Thailand, with some hard birding, due to it seems climate change according to the guides, rain cycles totally out of sync for last year and this year affecting many rainforest birds. 250 bird species were seen, including 6 pitta species, so I’m happy.

The info about Gurney’s Pitta at Khao Nor Chi Chi is pretty bad, so if you want to see one you better hurry (maybe ~ 6 pittas left?). Climate change and disturbance in the park are affecting the pitta in a bad way, photographers are the main culprits with numerous photographers and videographers setting up hides and playing Gurney’s Pitta calls all day long. It seems they only care about getting the perfect photo, not the bird’s welfare! Most (not all) of the recent photos and Youtube videos have been obtained this way. We saw one of these guys in a hide at another park trying to get Blue Pitta photos, playing the call for hours!

We spent two days looking for the pittas with local bird guide Yotin, finally got great views of a male and female Gurney’s for about 2 minutes, male and female in the same view. Yotin is the pitta expert, but even he had trouble finding any Gurney’s in the last 6 months, a number of international birding companies missed out on seeing them! I would recommend hiring Yotin, as he has assistants out with radios to find the pittas, otherwise you could spend a whole week walking the overgrown and poorly signposted trails and not see one. This was a common statement in the bird log book at the Morakot Resort!

The situation with the 2 Gurney’s Pittas we saw is not very good, as it seems the male has paired with his daughter! The ‘official pitta rescue project’ also hasn’t helped, by ‘illegally’ taking wild Gurney’s for breeding, which resulted in the pittas not breeding but dying, a lot of it due to lack of experience of the ‘researchers’. Maybe they should have tried breeding some more common pitta species first! The Gurney’s Pitta will probably disappear from Thailand shortly and the population found in Burma are in hard to get to locations, so it’s best to hurry if you want to see one.

As for the birding situation in the far south near the Malaysian border, DON’T GO. Extremists are killing people on a daily basis, with guys riding motorbikes along forest tracks with machine guns and killing whoever they find! Beware, there is at least one southern Thailand birding company that doesn’t even mention the trouble down there, some just say that no tourist has been hurt! Possibly because no tourist go there and the rebels haven’t been able to find one to gun down or keep as a hostage?

Regards,

Richard King

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Hi Alex,

I can recommend Nick Upton at http://www.thaibirding.com/ as one of the best bird guides I have ever birded with and he can probably arrange the type of level tour you want. I’m hoping to go birding with him later this year.

Cheers,

Richard King

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Hi All,

I just saw all the posts about the logo, and I thought only my wife and I were a bit unhappy with it! Ok here is my opinion.

Yes, I can see how it may relate to the Birdlife International blue logo, which I like better, it looks like a bird. Ours is a bit bland and looks like an airline symbol (Garuda Indonesia). For a desert continent with lots of reds and browns, why have we gone for northern hemisphere blue? Surely warmer colours represent Australia better, at least we could have had combination of Birds Australia emu orange and BOCA wren blue.

I may be wrong, but as far as I’m aware members had no input into the logo. Surely a choice of say three models could have been provided via newsletters or even the magazines, to be voted online or mail by members?

All of us will probably accept the logo in time, but I’m not sure how much mileage it will get before being changed. Hopefully then, members will be allowed more input into the public face of their organisation.

Regards,

Richard king

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