How many species of dump chook are there in Australia? Birding-Aus Digest, Vol 44, Issue 1

It was fascinating to see Aus Pelicans filling the role of dump chook at a landfill [presumably around Melbourne] on this week?s episode of the War on Waste.

The dominant dump chooks in SEQ are white ibis. In other places, Silver Gulls, the local corvids and Black Kites are the mainstays. In Weipa, Pied Herons filled the role.

How many other species of dump chook are there in Australia?

Regards, Laurie.

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Hi Laurie,

We have Pelicans at the South Grafton Waste facility, north coast NSW, as well and of course Torresian Crows and Australian Magpies.

Regards

Australian and Little Ravens at Jindabyne, with Silver Gulls as a back-up crew.

Mugga Tip, Canberra – of late Magpie Larks at green waste dump

Hi Laurie,
Supposedly the Mildura tip is the most reliable place to see Little Crow in Victoria!! Along with the other corvids already mentioned, that almost makes a “full house” of corvids, only missing the Forest maybe.

Cheers

John

*Yours in all things* “*GREEN”*

*John Harris BASc, GDipEd*
*Croydon, Vic*
*Director – Wildlife Experiences Pty Ltd* *Principal **Zoologist/**Ecologist* *Nature Photographer* *Wildlife Guide*

*www.wildlifeexperiences.com.au *

> It was fascinating to see Aus Pelicans filling the role of dump chook
> at a landfill [presumably around Melbourne] on this week?s episode of
> the War on Waste.
>
> The dominant dump chooks in SEQ are white ibis. In other places,
> Silver Gulls, the local corvids and Black Kites are the mainstays. In
> Weipa, Pied Herons filled the role.
>
> How many other species of dump chook are there in Australia?
>
> Regards, Laurie.
>

(Are the allocas seed pods only called orts after they’ve been eaten from?)

Main query– Yesterday I watched Red-browed Firetails systematically feeding in Glossy Black-Cockatoo Allocasuarinas. The finches lean towards the ort, delicately insert their beak, & remove themselves while eating.

Does Hanzab list this as a foraging activity / food genus for this species?

Cheers
Judith

And at Mugga Lane Tip in Canberra there used to be a colony of Fairy Martins!

John Leonard

and typically at the main area of Canberra Tip (AKA Waste Management Resource Centre) the silver gulls and white ibis are in big numbers, although at times pelicans have also been there in large flocks sandra h

Forest Raven are well represented at the South Hobart tip, along with Silver Gull, Kelp Gull and the odd Pacific Gull. There have also been regular visits by White-bellied Sea-eagle and Wedge-tailed Eagle.

Mona

reply all,

I cannot locate the word ort in two botanical references.

But I do know that finches eat casuarina seed, including beautiful firetail eating seed of Allocasurina littoralis in forests near Eden, N.S.W..

Dick Turner

Steve Garnett and Les Christidis say

“The assumption that species are fixed entities1 underpins every international agreement on biodiversity conservation, all national environmental legislation and the efforts of many individuals and organizations to safeguard plants and animals. Yet for a discipline aiming to impose order on the natural world, taxonomy (the classification of complex organisms) is remarkably anarchic.?

If one accepts evolution then surely the corollary is that species change over time. Else there would probably only be one species of bird Or am I missing something?

That?s not the point of the paper

“There is reasonable agreement among taxonomists that a species should represent a distinct evolutionary lineage. But there is none about how a lineage should be defined. ‘Species’ are often created or dismissed arbitrarily, according to the individual taxonomist’s adherence to one of at least 30 definitions. Crucially, there is no global oversight of taxonomic decisions ? researchers can ‘split or lump’ species with no consideration of the consequences.?

Googling “ort” many general dictionaries define it as a scrap of left over food. It seems to come from Middle and Old English and to be cognate with a similar word in Middle Low German. Possibly the word is not of relevance to botanists because it only applies when the plant has been eaten?

I was tempted to suggest a link to the O*ort* cloud of scraps of material around the solar system but that appears wrong as it is actually named after an astronomer Jan Oort!

To answer Judith’s question HANZAB cites one reference to red-brows dining on casuarina cones.

It?s not a botanical term. It is an ecological term used to describe the broken remains of Allocasuarina seed cones lying under the tree after being broken by birds (usually Glossy Black-Cockatoos) in the process of extracting the seeds. The number of orts under a tree is used as a measure of the level of food/feeding activity at the tree and the colour of the orts provides a guide to the length of time that has elapsed since they were broken.

regards

Oorts are fragments of chewed up grass (or other similar material) that are spat out by small mammals, especially Bettongs, probably because these remnants are too fibrous to swallow. Ecologists are using them to help measure activity of bettongs at different sites and also to collect DNA from fresh saliva-rich oorts (as a non-invasive sampling technique). It makes sense given the definition Martin found for ?orts” (food scraps). I wonder whether there is a different spelling by chance or deliberately (Gordon Claridge?) as the context seems the same (food scraps).

An interesting thread ?

Peter

Googling “ort” many general dictionaries define it as a scrap of left over food. It seems to come from Middle and Old English and to be cognate with a similar word in Middle Low German. Possibly the word is not of relevance to botanists because it only applies when the plant has been eaten?

I was tempted to suggest a link to the O*ort* cloud of scraps of material around the solar system but that appears wrong as it is actually named after an astronomer Jan Oort!

To answer Judith’s question HANZAB cites one reference to red-brows dining on casuarina cones.

reply all,

I cannot locate the word ort in two botanical references.

But I do know that finches eat casuarina seed, including beautiful firetail eating seed of Allocasurina littoralis in forests near Eden, N.S.W..

Dick Turner

On 1/06/2017 9:29 AM, Judith L-A wrote:

(Are the allocas seed pods only called orts after they’ve been eaten
from?)

Main query– Yesterday I watched Red-browed Firetails systematically feeding in Glossy Black-Cockatoo Allocasuarinas. The finches lean towards the ort, delicately insert their beak, & remove themselves while eating.

Does Hanzab list this as a foraging activity / food genus for this species?

Cheers
Judith

So taxonomy should be a political activity? It is already basically a political decision that only species matter. Yet believe it or not, back in the early 90s Qld Forestry accepted the notion that they should protect the viability of local populations, not just broader categories like species or subspecies. Northern Spotted Owl got protection in the USA despite not even being a subspecies!

Cheers, Chris.

I suspect it is not the “change over time” that is the issue, because that scale of time is longer than the scope of current bureaucratic issues. However that the change occurs over time but that we are at a particular point in time, so that it is obvious that at any one point in time there will be some species that are in a stable state and easily defined, especially if no other close relatives still exist (think for example of the platypus), whereas other species will be at a stage of variation at which it is hard to set dividing lines as to the boundaries of particular species.

Philip