Like!
Chris Charles has clearly got it wrong about the “ONE thing NSW has over Vic???” – I had never heard of A. portuensis before and that is a very seriously rare plant. I wonder what other associated plants have gone for ever.
As to the RWBs, I wonder why they seem to have disappeared from Melbourne.
In my area Roy Wheeler recorded the species in the 1940s and they were around, particularly at one location around George St, Sandringham in the 1990s up to 1996 (including a nest).
I am aware of other Melbourne records from 2002 and 2010 of single birds in St Kilda and Ferntree Gully.
However, it is still kept as an aviary species (less popular than in the past?) so that might account for the decline in observations. Or is there an ecological reason? I remember a suggestion that with climate change the population would grow.
Michael Norris Bayside, Melbourne
