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https://theconversation.com/in-a-record-breaking-drought-bush-birds-from-around-perth-flocked-to-the-city-241795>
"Perth is no stranger to hot and dry summers, but the period from October 2023
to April 2024 was exceptional. The city’s rainfall for these seven months was
only 23 millimetres, the lowest since records began in the 1870s. It was also
one of the warmest summers on record, with temperatures 1.7°C higher than the
long-term average.
The “canary in the coalmine” is a metaphor for an early warning that something
is wrong. In this case, though, it wasn’t the birds that first alerted us.
Rather, we saw the drought’s impacts on our iconic and unique vegetation.
Jarrah, marri, karri and banksia trees, some as old as 100 years, began to die.
The die-offs created a mosaic of brown patches across 1,000 kilometres of
south-west Australia’s otherwise green forest.
The region’s ecosystems are diverse and complex. As the drought took hold,
there were more subtle changes beyond the visible tree deaths. Perth has a
community of avid birdwatchers who began noticing bird species rarely seen in
the city, or known to be infrequent visitors.
We analysed bird observation data from the global citizen science platform,
eBird, to determine which species had increased in the Perth metropolitan area
at this time. We found a dramatic spike in reporting rates for four species –
the black-shouldered kite, black-tailed nativehen, tawny-crowned honeyeater and
western spinebill. Some species were reported up to nine times more than
usual."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
