Merri Birdwatch report - February 2025

Photo: Sacred Kingfisher. Copyright, Peter Mollison

A heavy shower, followed by drizzle, didn’t dampen birders’ excitement at spotting Sacred Kingfishers on 16 February. One was at the Brunswick Velodrome, where Peter Mollison took the photo. Another was sitting in a dead tree by the Creek, just south of Arthurton Road. It is likely that these birds bred along the Merri last spring-summer. They will soon be flying north to warmer places for winter.

Despite the weather, 53 people joined in our surveys at 10 sites along the Merri and at Edwardes Lake. A total of 68 species were recorded. Rainbow Lorikeets were the most numerous, with an estimated total of 216 birds across seven sites (absent from our grassland sites). White Ibis were next, recorded at eight sites.

        
Photo: Out on the Merri Trail. Copyright Peter Mollison

It was wet and windy at the grassland sites. At galgi ngarrk, while there were a few moments of sunshine between the rain clouds, many birds remained in hiding, or were heard, but not seen.  The survey started with a family of three Red-rumped Parrots (unusual for this location) and finished with three raptors: a Collared Sparrowhawk; Brown Goshawk; and a Black-shouldered Kite.

A Great Cormorant was an unusual sighting at bababi djinanang. More often seen at Edwardes Lake, or Coburg Lake, Great Cormorants haven’t been recorded in our surveys at bababi djinanang since 2016.

Steve was leader and solo surveyor at galada tamboore. He noted that grass was shorter, less than 1m high, compared with previous seasons where it has been up to 1.5m with many higher flowering stalks. There was almost a complete absence of flowering activity and even the wild fennel looked a bit sick. There seemed to be a lot of grazing pressure from relatively high numbers of Grey Kangaroos. The lack of height and volume was definitely contributing to the paucity of grassland species like Cisticolas and Pipits, or Skylarks.

On the Coburg Lake survey, upstream near Carr Street, 14 Rock Doves (feral pigeons) and one Spotted Dove were feeding on an exposed clay bank. Echoes of the famous clay licks in the Amazon basin where macaws and other spectacular parrots gather nutrients?