Artificial trees capture new bird species on candid camera

AUGUST 23, 2019

by Jane Faure-Brac, Australian National University

An experiment from The Australian National University (ANU) using artificial trees has attracted birds and other wildlife never before seen in a damaged Canberra landscape—catching them on camera at the same time.

The experiment is a collaboration with the ACT Parks and Conservation Service and uses a series of power poles and translocated dead trees erected in landscape under regeneration.

The ANU researchers saw a four-fold increase in bird species on five recently erected power-poles. There was also a seven-fold increase in bird species across five re-purposed dead trees.

In a separate project on the same site, the birds were captured on motion-sensitive cameras hidden in the artificial structures, with the footage providing a public database for species activity.

Associate Professor Philip Gibbons from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society wanted to test whether artificial structures could be used to provide a home for birds and other wildlife when mature trees were cut down for residential and other development.

He says the artificial trees work better than he "could have ever hoped for."

"Even if we plant new trees elsewhere to replace those we knock down they take a century to mature and develop suitable habitats for birds and wildlife," Associate Professor Gibbons said.

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Red-whiskered bulbul: Canberrans asked to be on the lookout for a feral bird species

Posted yesterday at 9:09pm

It may look cute, but the feral red-whiskered bulbul poses a serious threat to Australia's native plants and wildlife - and the discovery of the bird in Canberra has authorities worried.

One of the pest bird species, native in parts of Asia, was caught this month by a resident of Campbell in Canberra's north.

ACT Parks and Conservation Service director Daniel Iglesias said the bird was a prohibited and notifiable pest species, that posed a "serious threat" to the Australian environment.

The bird is typically brown with a white neck, a distinctive red cheek patch and pointed black crest on its head.

The song is a scolding chatter and the call sounds like a sharp "kink-a-joo".

"It has established in Sydney and Melbourne with some isolated populations on the North coast of NSW and areas of Queensland," Mr Iglesias said.

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Indian myna birds could be getting more intelligent, Canberra bird action group says

666 ABC Canberra By Hannah Walmsley with Genevieve Jacobs

Posted about 10 hours agoTue 27 Jan 2015, 4:48am

A resurgence of the Indian myna bird population in Canberra could result from the birds outsmarting the community trapping program.

Canberra's Indian Myna Action Group president Bill Handke said that while the population of Indian mynas had been successfully controlled, the group had been forced to explore new trapping methods.

"We hear more stories now of mynas not going near traps and even, disturbingly, teaching their young not to go near traps," Mr Handke told 666 ABC Canberra.

"I suspect Indian myna birds have worked out traps are bad news."

The Indian myna bird is considered a pest, competing with native wildlife for food and habitat.

"The problems with Indian mynas is that [they] take over the hollows of nesting birds like the rosella and kookaburra and cockatoo," Mr Handke said.

"[They also] drive birds out of gardens and prey on small birds, their chicks, and eggs."

Indian myna numbers spiked in the mid 1990s with the species becoming the third-most common in Canberra.

A backyard trapping program formed in 2006 by the Canberra Myna Bird Action Group drastically reduced the number of the pest species.

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