March 25, 2014

Sanctuary Cove Waterbird Update for the last week in March 2014

Rainer Ebel,  graejayatshaw.ca ; Marine Dr. East, Sanctuary Cove QLD

I have been somewhat remiss by not publishing on a weekly basis. I had to briefly skip town to visit friends in Tasmania. This lost the momentum I had earlier, and upon my return, I spent the time inputting data, catching up on surveys, or banding birds.  My Rubric’s cube is also twisted with family members, birthdays, and deaths.  The day is arriving that my only option is to pack up house and carry all the accumulated data north where I sit to complete the various reports that are due. Believe me, it is that sweet but, just try sitting in a cold climate thinking tropical birds and hot weather.  The northern hemisphere is beginning to push its winter blanket back.  In Alberta, birds are beginning to flow into the province from south. The green may be peeking from under the snow blanket by the end of April.  Ok, enough, right.    

                                                                                                                                

 So, what are those waterbirds doing for the past few weeks on Sanctuary Cove.

If we look at Figure 1 we see some highs, some lows followed with some gains in the last half of March.  God, this sound like at stock market report.  I arrived at the graph numbers by dividing the total number of birds counted by the area or 175.25 hectares, the total area of the Pines and Palms. This means that, say on 28 February there were 30.6 birds per hectare of land.  I’d say: Unique; that many birds sharing their space with golfers. I could have used the pond area but such species as the Australian White Ibis, Purple Swamphen, Eurasian Coot, and Masked Lapwing just to name a few while are near ponds they are also found some distance from any particular pond, foraging in all available habitats.  Therefore, it was just easier to use the total golf course area instead of pond hectares.

From the 16 January to the 28 February the waterbird population of both golf courses, gradually and steadily increased but immediately thereafter total numbers took a bit of a nosedive, bottoming out on the 20 March.  On that day we had to compete with a corporate challenge of some description, which may have affected bird numbers. However, visually the majority of birds were absent from the survey area. We also started later than usual which may also contributed to the lower than expected numbers. Perhaps a future study should address the effects of golfer activity on resident waterbird numbers.  On the last survey date 25 March, we did notice a huge increase of Australian White Ibis on both golf courses.  We counted 400 birds.  In contrast, the 20 March, there were only 40 birds present and on 7 March, a mere 26 birds were scattered evenly throughout the Pines and Palms.  The horde of sanitary engineers had arrived to clean the greens.  On the evening of 28 March, an estimate of 600 ibis littered the pines.  It occurred to me while driving about the Pines that the Pines, more so than the Palms may be used as a moulting site by ibis as well as other species such as the Long-billed and Little corellas.  All the conditions of water, food, and shelter are met for some of these species afterall how does one account for all the feathers lying about in Sanctuary Cove?