In this Spotlight, we hear John Saw, one of our amazing Birds on Farms volunteers, who has been surveying and watching birds for years - recently reaching 600 different species. He has also been an invaluable volunteer within the BirdLife Ovens & Murray Branch. John surveying on a trip to Marysville How did you first get inspired by the birds? John: I became a birder at age 12, when my father came home for lunch and said a group of people had come to where he worked to see a rare bird, asking if I would like to go back with him to see it.  I did and the Black Redstart was my “fi ..read more

BirdLife Tasmania continues to lead the fight against the proposed Robbins Island wind farm, in north-west Tasmania. The scale and location of the proposed wind farm put a suite of migratory species under threat, as well as a range of threatened year-round locals. Each year, Critically Endangered Orange-bellied Parrots migrate between their Tasmanian breeding grounds and their wintering sites on the Australian mainland, and back again. Last autumn, it was estimated that about 140 birds — essentially the entire wild population — migrated north through north-western Tasmania on their way to the ..read more

Thanks to the awesome efforts of Riley and Macey, two young BirdLife supporters, for removing dozens of old discarded tyres from a wetland in south-western Victoria. The Glenelg Hopkins Catchment in south-western Victoria has some amazing wetlands, and the region provides a home to amazing native birds, like Australasian Bitterns. In a wetlands in Portland, siblings Riley and Macey took the initiative to remove littered old tyres, which they noticed were polluting the wetland that they were surveying for Bitterns. As you can see from the images below, dozens of tyres have been removed! A truly ..read more

This year’s annual Great Pelican Count saw volunteers from Mallacoota join those in the Gippsland Lakes region of Victoria, with over 1100 pelicans being counted by just under 100 BirdLife supporters! Pelicans by Louisa Kelland It gives us a good baseline for pelican numbers for Mallacoota, and excitingly it saw volunteers in Gippsland Lakes spotting 476 more of these unmistakeable birds than in 2021! The annual Great Pelican Count is a BirdLife Australia citizen science survey designed to provide a snapshot of the Australian Pelican population recorded on the same day and at the same time ac ..read more

BirdLife Tasmania embarked on their 39th annual Winter Gull Count over the Queen’s Birthday Weekend this year, bringing in yet more data for a survey series that goes back almost uninterrupted to 1980! Now we have the results, and it’s looking good for the three gull populations in southern Tassie. Dr Eric Woehler, Convenor of BirdLife Tasmania, remarked that virtually all counters described their experience as, “memorable,” with large swells and high winds making even quiet conditions dramatic (picture below). Nevertheless, counters were able to get the data they sought! Gull populations in s ..read more

Tawny Frogmouths A troupe of supporters from BirdLife Mackay enjoyed the lovely Saturday sun in Mackay, checking out the birds from the Bridge Road Fishing Platform before ambling along the Cathy Freeman section of the Bluewater Trail. From the platform the flock of birders had great views of the birds, which kept largely still, enabling good clear views and excellent photography opportunities. That being said, it wasn’t always easy to spot these stationary birds. Penny reports that: “None of us noticed the "resident" frogmouths in the fig tree, until a passer-by showed us and told us that t ..read more

The Yuku Baja Muliku Rangers were the 2021 recipients of BirdLife Australia’s Indigenous Grant for Bird Research and Conservation. As part of the grant, BirdLife staff visited Cooktown for a workshop, giving a presentation on bird identification and Birdata.  Then we travelled with the group to their wide range of habitats, including mangrove estuaries, sweeping beaches, eucalypt savannas, tropical freshwater swamps and riverine rainforest.   We saw the benefit of their work in protecting one of the beaches at Archer Point, where Red-capped Plovers with numerous young ran along ..read more

Lady, the White-bellied Sea Eagle, has laid her first egg for the 2022 breeding season - from which we hope to see eaglet SE29 hatch. Watch Sea-EagleCAM, live, this Winter, and follow along with our favourite sea eagle fam. Also exciting news about SE27! As an early bonus for the cam, a sub-adult visited the nest, and even moved a few sticks, before a few hours later Lady laid an egg. Lady was very efficient with this egg, and the process of laying took under 25 minutes! Dad was standing on the nest "supporting" her before moving up to perch nearby. White-bellied Sea Eagles often lay pairs of ..read more

by Lindall Kidd, Migratory Shorebird Program Officer, BirdLife Australia A huge thank you to all of you who were involved in the recent summer shorebird count 2021/22, which was completed on 28 February, and during which a total of 415, 213 migratory shorebirds of 33 different species were counted! Looking at estimates of survey duration we can see that at least 1889 hours of volunteer time was spent counting shorebirds this summer (the actual number of hours is likely to be much higher, as single users often enter the data on behalf of many individuals for large count areas)! Impressive cover ..read more

BirdLife Northern Queensland’s Dr Ray Pierce continues to organise volunteer surveys to monitor and study one population of Endangered Gouldian Finches in Queensland. The project seeks to learn why this population of Gouldians has remained, after a widespread population crashes in Queensland since European settlement. Excitingly, these regular surveys have uncovered some interesting symbiotic relationships between nesting Gouldian Finches and Black-faced Woodswallows. Finches benefit from the protective nature of the woodswallows, who by protecting their own nests, also inadvertently protect t ..read more