Feeding Birds

Since my last post regarding feeding Parrots and Cockatoos I have had
several inquiries from people wanting more information and some inquiring
how they can

donate money or seed to help with the cost of this exercise.

I’m sure there are some failures with feeding birds with different problems
cropping up but this exercise seems to be a great success but I emphasize
the fact they

are only fed during the breeding season.

At the moment he has 40 birds on the table in his yard which have chicks and
will be fed till March as it is the second sitting.

He is also hand rearing several abandoned babies which he has done for many
years and it has got him into trouble many times with the authorities in the
early days.

Over the years he has been adding more nesting logs in the district and
added 7 last year this year added an extra 10.

When he started feeding years ago there were 12 breeding pairs and is now up
to 92 plus the young not old enough to breed and the number is increasing by
approx. 20

a year and feels they are getting to the maximum number that the area can
support.

The logs in his yard have successfully fledged 34, 32, 30 and 6 plus the
one on the chimney which failed this year when a cat disturbed the sitting
parent during the

night and the young one died of cold.

Even had two hens lay in the one log, they rarely rear 2 young, as you
properly know the first egg is rarely fertile.

His cost have gone from $1200 a year when I was there to over $4,500 this
year with the cost of a bag of Grey Sunflower now costing him $88 and a bag
of Almonds $120 and he will

after donations fall many hundreds of dollars short.

Due to the cost he has been blending Grey with the Black and hasn’t had any
problems with the feathers yet.

He is not on the powers that be Christmas Card mailing list because of his
outspoken objections to some of the programs they have put in place, like
the planting of Banksias etc down

middle of the Freeways and Highways in Perth which results in many, many
Carnaby’s being killed by cars, trucks etc as they fly low when they take
off.

The large flock I wrote about last week feeding in the paddock of Native
Grass were spooked by a Truckie tooting his horn at them and he killed four
and injured many more as they

crossed the road in front of him and the reason I got the photos was the
reeled around and came back to the cries of the injured ones.

He feels that the harvesting of the pine forests around Perth etc will
deprive the Carnaby’s of an essential source of back up food they eat when
the Banksia’s etc are not available.

He is of the opinion that the numbers are reducing by 15% a year around
Perth. and with several flocks in his area North of Perth almost wiped out
by the Black Fungus Spore in the Canola seed.

He has doubts about the success of the Black P V C pipes they are using for
nesting logs due to the heat killing the young and several other programs
put in place that killed young but they

have in recent times picked his brain regarding his knowledge obtained over
30 years regarding logs, feeding etc

They originally put plywood inside the P V C for the birds to go in and out
but Cockies being Cockies chew the walls of the logs to get chips to lay the
eggs on and after chewing the plywood

they couldn’t get out the slippery P V C, they now use 1 inch sqr
reinforcing mesh and have painted the inside of the P V C white ??????

The painting of the tails of chicks for identification and the taking of one
egg instead of two from many nests by the authorities are things that have
got him fired up because of the results.

There are people on here will know a lot more about this than I do, I can
only speak about one side that I have heard.

He tells me he has put in an area at his house where tourists can come and
make a cup of tea or coffee and there is a microwave for heating food and
they can watch the Carnaby’s and take

photos to their hearts content.

He is now at last getting a lot of recognition for the life time of caring
for the Carnaby’s and if you Google Wally Kerkhoff you will see many
articles about him and his group ” Moora Kerkhoff

Carnaby Group”

I don’t feel I should put his Phone number on a public forum but if anyone
would like to donate money etc please email me and I will pass it on.

Considered an eccentric by many but a wealth of knowledge not only on
Carnaby’s but his predictions made of the destruction by clearing the
Banksia country to the weather pattern is the

district to the ridicules loss of countless millions of dollars by
superannuation groups etc trying to grow unsuitable plantations of Pines.
Citrus, Stone Fruit, Avocado, Palonia which many have

failed and his prediction that they will ruin the quality of the underground
water are all coming true, some places the water has 400 grms of salt and
others equivalent to sea water.

I spent a morning driving around the district with him looking for
Carnaby’s to no avail and he pointed out these plantations that had gone in
and spoke of how they would fail , years later it

has proven true.

Barney.