Hello
I haven¹t had time to follow the plains-wanderer and land management thread on birding-aus closely but I think I have the general drift. Richard Nowotny kindly asked for my perspective. Belatedly here it is: I have little idea about current management at Terrick Terrick or Oolambeyan national parks although I know both properties well, having surveyed and located plains-wanderers on both in the 1990s and recommending that they be purchased by their respective State governments. Terrick Terrick and surrounding reserves would most probably now be wheat fields if not bought by conservation bodies.
The article in the Weekly Times (and Deniliquin¹s Pastoral Times the following week) is about a few landowners enjoying their told-you-so¹ moment but not having a grasp of the bigger picture with plains-wanderers. Tying it in with the cattle in the high country issue was overreaching somewhat. Having said that, seeking advice from landowners and highly experienced plains-wanderer experts occasionally should be in Parks¹ armoury.
The best land management in the world would not have made a skerrick of difference to the dire situation that plains-wanderers are currently in. The overriding factor has been the weather. From 2001 to 2010 we had nine years of drought or near drought conditions, which rendered the Hay plains, for the most part, too bare for plains-wanderers. They retreated to ever diminishing areas that still had cover and while they continued to breed throughout the drought years it was in greatly reduced numbers. Then we had the drought breaking rains of late winter 2010 after which the cover re-established and by October 2010 plains-wanderers had returned from wherever they had been and commenced breeding like crazy in their old haunts. Over about a two-week period in November 2010 we located six nests in one paddock, by far the most nests we¹d located in a single year. This was their big chance to get their numbers up but it was not to be with another deluge flooding all nests. This was the pattern for the remainder of the summer, with chicks or nests with eggs repeatedly flooded out. A few young possibly made it through in late summer and autumn. By the end of the 2010/11 summer the native grasses had become so thick in areas usually inhabited by plains-wanderers that many of the birds disappeared, presumably looking for somewhere drier and barer. We started spotlighting buff-banded rail and brown quail in paddocks normally inhabited by plains-wanderers. The few remaining plains-wanderers retreated to the barest remaining areas on the property. The rains ceased in autumn/winter and we were expecting plains-wanderers to resume breeding but nothing happened. It was as if they were too exhausted from their futile breeding attempts in the summer to have another go. (Over the last 32 years, we¹ve recorded them breeding in every month of the year). In the spring of 2011 the rains started again and although not as much fell as the previous year, it was still fairly wet. Strangely, although the remaining plains-wanderers were paired up, they seemed disinclined to breed. Whether the food supply wasn¹t conducive to breeding or they were still knackered from the previous season¹s exertions, I don¹t know. Towards the end of the last summer some breeding occurred as the odd juvenile was recorded.
About five inches of rain fell early March this year, which again flooded plains-wanderers out, after which we went into one of the driest winter/springs in living memory.
Plains-wanderers have been in pairs since about August but this spring seems too dry for them to breed, which is odd for a bird that does best on average or below average rainfall. Unless they breed soon this will be the third season with little to no breeding and with limited breeding during the drought years. The rainfall has now become so erratic with months of no rain at all, and then a huge dump. Winter rainfall, once the most reliable rain in the Riverina, has all but disappeared over the last fifteen years. The survival of plains-wanderers seems entirely dependent on the weather returning to some sort of normality.
In our area of the southern Riverina, many of the passerines and some of the non-passerines are now breeding during the winter months, having become more opportunistic in their breeding attempts like species in true desert regions.
No amount of grazing by sheep could possibly have kept down the volume of growth that occurred over the last two summers. Remember also that sheep numbers in 2010 were very low because of the previous nine years of drought. From where were all these sheep going to materialise?
Very low numbers of plains-wanderers, whether they are in national parks or on private, well-grazed properties, are a result of extreme weather events. Simple as that.
FYI, all our plains-wanderer sightings are written up on the latest news page of our website. The plains-wanderer weekend checklist documents ten years of sightings over the spring/summer period up to this current weekend.
All the best
Philip Maher
Deniliquin +61 3 58813378
Australian Ornithological Services Pty Ltd PO Box 385 South Yarra 3141 Victoria Australia Tel: + 61 3 98204223 Mobile: 0417310200 http://www.philipmaher.com http://www.youtube.com/user/AOS3141 Skype: patricia.maher3141
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