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Welcome to Murray Wildlife

Murray Wildlife is a biodiversity research, education and conservation consultancy, led by Wildlife Ecologist Matt Herring. We specialise in wildlife conservation on farms, community engagement, wetland management and ecology, and waterbird conservation.

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"The best thing we can do for nature is simply spend more time in it. From there, reverence grows and action flows.”

M. Herring, 2013.

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Hundreds of Endangered Bunyip Birds Unaccounted For

Posted on: October 20th, 2014 by Matt Herring 4 Comments

 

Where do the bitterns go after rice harvest? Part 2

The plot thickens. Just when we thought we might be getting a handle on things, our latest survey results only raise more questions and these sneaky Australasian Bitterns seem as perplexing as ever. In six weeks or so, they’ll descend on the rice crops, from somewhere.

Yesterday we completed the second round of targeted surveys at wetlands in the Riverina that we think are the best candidates to support them outside of the rice season. They range from irrigation channels and dams, to waterways and large, internationally recognised Ramsar sites. You may recall that in June, shortly after harvest, we found 11 bitterns, highlighted by four at a well vegetated wetland near Griffith and four in a cumbungi-filled irrigation channel near Coleambally. Well, they’re not there now. They’ve moved, somewhere.

With only one bittern found after five days of walking through wetlands, and our tails firmly between our legs, we suddenly hit the jackpot yesterday morning – a minimum of 8 Australasian Bitterns, probably ten or more, spread throughout a small dam (approx. 4 ha) that supports patchy stands of cumbungi and rushes (see below). Intriguingly, there were none here in June when the water level was lower. A large wetland nearby has recently received environmental water so they may well be responding to that and feeding out there at night.

 

IMG_1989   Tuckerbil Basin Oct 19 2014

 

These latest results remind us why we are so keen to get a satellite tracking project up and going. In June, and just now, we may have found a handful of the missing birds but even these are clearly moving around the landscape during the non-breeding season. We’ve had three records in the past couple of weeks of bitterns using recently watered wheat and oat crops, further suggesting that some stick around, but all things considered, it does appear that a large proportion of the bitterns that use Riverina rice crops have left the region. We’ll be welcoming them back shortly, from somewhere. Our Tracking Bunyip Birds crowdfunding campaign now has over 200 supporters and $44 000 raised, but we only have six days to go and $6000 remaining to reach our required target. It’s nail-biting stuff.

 

IMG_1790   IMG_1887

 

Lastly, speaking of responses to environmental water, it was wonderful to see hundreds of Sharp-tailed Sandpipers (above left) using freshly flooded shallows. During the week we saw three other sandpiper species that breed in the northern hemisphere, and there were also Latham’s (Japanese) Snipe but the big highlight was stumbling upon a Little Curlew (above right), a real rarity in the Riverina. There were also the shorebirds that breed here in Australia, like Red-necked Avocets and Black-winged Stilts, in their hundreds, along with good numbers of Glossy Ibis, Whiskered Tern, Baillon’s Crake, Spotted Crake and various other waterbird delights. Lots of frogs and snakes too!

 

IMG_1994    IMG_2026

 

Special thanks to the Riverina Local Land Services for funding these wetland surveys, and to Nathan Smith, trusty assistant bittern botherer.

 

 

4 Responses

  1. Robbie has been sighted after surviving 50 km/h winds, 1.5 kms out at sea | Bitterns in Rice Project says:
    May 14, 2015 at 8:14 am

    […] in unharvested rice, just like the one below on Monday morning. Are these stragglers the ones that stay in the region over winter or are they also about to fly far away? All will be revealed in good time, but we’re so […]

    Reply
  2. Enviro water for drain; Goulburn bitterns; key supporters; & Robbie update. | Bitterns in Rice Project says:
    June 5, 2015 at 12:24 pm

    […] the rice-breeding bittern population stays in the region, as the birds we found in winter and spring were not there in summer when the rice season was back in full swing. They used dams, channels, […]

    Reply
  3. Robbie returns to the Riverina! | Bitterns in Rice Project says:
    September 20, 2015 at 7:14 am

    […] Lake Wyangan was one of the sites we’d searched for bitterns during the last non-breeding season because we suspected it might […]

    Reply
  4. Arnold’s on the move | Bitterns in Rice Project says:
    July 10, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    […] in rice head off to far-flung wetlands on the coast. Prior to any tracking, we undertook winter and spring surveys at wetlands most likely to support bitterns in the Murrumbidgee and Coleambally […]

    Reply

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