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Wimmera Birds in tune with the environment
While frogs are often recognised as barometers of a changing climate, Wimmera Catchment Management Authority (CMA) is harnessing another useful animal to gauge the health of our environment - birds.
Funding
Thanks to $93,000 from the Australian Government and support from the State Government, the CMA is midway through a five-year project to assess the health of 200 sites across the catchment.
Activities
"Frogs are good for monitoring water but don't tell you very much about a woodland, for instance," said Jonathan Starks, Bird Monitoring Coordinator. "Yet birds are very good indicators of catchment health (and biodiversity) because they occupy a wide range of habitats. Everything relies on habitat - so the presence or lack of birds reveals a lot about the health of an area.
"In particular, birds are useful because they are conspicuous, active and highly visible during the day, plus a bit higher up the food chain, so can tell you about what's going on lower down the food chain."
Volunteer surveys are conducted four times a year, with members of the community recording the number of different species in a two hectare area for 20 minutes. The 200 sites represent different types of land use and vegetation, including some private and public land as well as some burnt by bushfire. While the surveys focus on the number of different species, Jonathan uses a well-established method to measure the relative abundance of species.
"Bird surveys can indicate if there's an increase or decrease - in fact any change in the population levels of a particular species," Jonathan said.
Jonathan follows the methodology used by Birds Australia and the resulting data is in turn used by the national organisation.
Achievements
An example of how effective bird surveys can be in monitoring environmental health was demonstrated when a volunteer recorded nine bird species in a very dry MacKenzie River, then after an environment flow had been released he found the number of birds had almost doubled.
When Wimmera started using bird surveys in this way it was only the second CMA to do so, but now more and more are using the technique. Some employ professional bird watchers, but Jonathan prefers to stick with the experience of the local bird watchers.
"We value the input of community bird watchers, and we get tremendous support from them," he said. "A number of our volunteers survey their own property and like to know they're helping the region and supporting a bigger picture."
More information
- Jonathan Starks, Bird Monitoring Coordinator: (03) 5382 1544 or starksj@wcma.vic.gov.au
- Wimmera CMA website: www.wcma.vic.gov.au
- Birds Australia website: www.birdsaustralia.com.au
See also
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