In Ed Frazer’s latest Bush Bites, Colin the Sparrowhawk was saved from certain death. Ed muses the implications of interfering in the balance of nature and shares the adventures of a new friend.
Meet Colin the Sparrowhawk here
Colin the Sparrowhawk by Ed Frazer
Late one afternoon my grandson arrived at the door with a noisy bundle of feathers. The bird, a Sparrowhawk was found on the road that is adjacent to our properties and services the Goldmont Estate off Gold Creek Road. I warmed the bird up and placed it in a heated Lizard Terrarium to stabilize it overnight. From its awareness of my movements and his screeching it obviously needed food, so I tried pinkie mice and de-frosted quail chicks which I halved. It didn’t need much encouragement and two hours after he was pushed out of its nest it was taking what seemed enormous amounts of food in relationship to its size.
Colin when we found him, 13/11/2019
I had heard the parents calling and had ideas of releasing the bird near them in hope they would continue to raise the chick. I couldn’t get near enough to them mainly because the Mickey Birds (Noisy Miners) were seeking us out and making screeching runs on the parents. I found their nest which was very sparse for a hawk and inexplicably right over the roadway in the middle of Mickey Bird territory. I am pretty sure the Mickies were responsible for pushing the youngster out of the nest.
I have never experienced a bird eating so vigorously or so much for its size. A week later and it was exercising its wings and nearly ready for flying. I made a nest out of a used packing case with shade cloth, an approximation of a “hacking box” that the raptor people use. It was located not far from the house in a densely planted area of wattles and taller eucalypts.
Colin in the Hacking cage 21/11/2019
The bird took to it almost too quickly and after only one night in the bush it took off and left me worried it wouldn’t have enough time to adapt to the wild. I find it difficult to write about “him” or more correctly “it” as I have no idea of its sex. I had such a close and intensive relationship with it that it was named Colin by Michelle Johnston with whom I shared my experience. Of course, it was just as likely to be a Coleen.
Later in the afternoon I heard the familiar vigorous calling, so I took out some defrosted quails and placed them in a hanging dish. A soon as I moved back, Colin came flying in and grasped at the food without stopping at all and made a clumsy landing in a dense branch of a large wattle. This became a regular routine and Colin would cry from a high point until I came out with some food. He got better at grasping the food and landing and in no time, I would throw a half-grown quail in the air and Colin would appear from his hiding spot and catch the quail before it hit the ground. After about two weeks Colin would be missing in the early morning but turn up later in the day for a feed. It became clear he was gradually finding his own food.
Colin diving in to catch a defrosted quail before it touches the ground, 21/12/2019. This was one of the last times we saw him until his three appearances chased by the Mickey birds in October 2020.
Forty-two days after Colin was found he didn’t come back and I thought that was the end of a brilliant interaction with one our wildest predators that I’m sure I will never forget. I wondered what impact my rescuing him was. Was he taking one duckling a day? I see several Black or Wood Ducks which usually start with about 12 day-old ducklings and every day this reduced until they have only 2 or 3 survivors. Sparrowhawks would be number one suspect for these losses. My act of saving Colin in the last year would possibly be responsible for more than a hundred ducklings, finches, wrens, and even rarer ground birds such as Button Quails, Pittas and Thrushes dying every year.
But I thought he may not have survived.
However almost exactly a year after Colin released himself, I was out in the garden near the Hacking Cage and I heard the unmistakable strident call from the Wattle clump near the tray on which I used to feed him. It was the same bird. I was just about to go and get Colin some food when the Mickies came in and pushed him from one perch to another until he had had enough and flew off. This has been repeated twice since, so I am sure he is doing well, but he is just another bird that the Mickies can run off. By planting trees and mowing or grazing the grass underneath we are encouraging Mickies and other vigorous birds. They are excluding less dominant species such as finches, wrens and small honeyeaters and making our enjoyment of our flora poorer. However, I didn’t realize their impact on larger birds although I regularly see them chasing other raptors including the closely related Brown and Grey Goshawks.
Small acts like mine in saving this Sparrowhawk or larger programmes of removing weedy habitat and planting mainly trees, have rather large and not necessarily positive impacts on the fauna of our catchment. It is rather humbling to be involved but it is very clear that we must be careful when we choose to be involved as we are not in control of the consequences.
The Summer Newsletter is out now!
Summer is here and isn’t it HOT already but not as hot as our latest newsletter!
As always it is packed full of the recent MCCG events such as the annual Photography Competition with an event ‘snap shot’ and also some ‘behind the photo’ tidbits of some of the winners. Check out who is now First Aid trained and read all about the Creek Health Monitoring Program.
The local fauna and flora is fully covered with information on Powerful Owls, boxing Wallabies, Platypus, Frogs and ‘Collared Colin’. Lomandras, Butterfly Vines and weedy Taro are also featured.
Find out why Yvonne Quinlan volunteers and how you can too. And if you have always wanted to go for a walk in the park with Malcom Frost – now is your chance!
As usual there is the Chairman’s Report and this newsletter has the AGM wrap up.
Grab a cold drink, sit back and enjoy the latest MCCG Newsletter.
Feather Fascination – The Final One!
It is with huge appreciation and a tinge of sadness that the final Feather Fascination is published on the website and in The Local Bulletin. Jim Butler’s incredible contribution to increasing awareness and love of our local birds and their antics has been widely enjoyed in the community for 8 years. His knowledge is unrivalled and his time spent volunteering these articles will be greatly missed.
Thank you Jim!
Please enjoy this Feather Fascination
Here is a link to read all of Jim Butler’s Feather Fascination articles.
MCCG will be filling the gap left by Jim with a variety of writers contributing to the new ‘Wildlife Matters’ column in The Local Bulletin and also on our website. Stay tuned for the first article in January 2021!
Know Your Wildlife!
Test your skills each month with Jim Butler’s Wildlife Identification Quiz!
You’ll find Know Your Wildlife towards the back of every month’s The Local Bulletin.
We will provide the answers to each quiz right here in the first week of every month!
So, do you have your answers ready for the December quiz? The correct answers are:
The three birds are:
1. Wonga Pigeon
2. Brown Thornbill
3. Pheasant Coucal
The answer: Which birds has come through our back yard for 44 years IS: Pheasant Coucal.
ps: If you need some help, we’d recommend searching our digital field guides! Open them from the side menu:
These alphabetical lists provide a wealth of local information about wildlife. They feature thumb-nail images which expand to a larger view when you click upon them.
Keep an eye out for next month’s quiz!
MCCG AGM 7:30pm Thursday, 26th November 2020
The AGM for the Moggill Creek Catchment Group will be held at 7:30pm on Thursday
28th November at the Brookfield Hall. Our guest speaker will be aquatic ecologist, Dr
Timothy Howell.
Tim is an aquatic ecologist whose childhood interests in freshwater ecology continued
through to his professional career. He holds a degree with honours in Aquatic Science
and a PhD (research) in fish ecology and river rehabilitation. While writing up his PhD
thesis Tim lived in Kenmore and spent much of his spare time poking around in Moggill
Creek. In 2010 he worked with members of the Moggill Creek Catchment Group to
develop the initial sampling protocols for the Creek Health Monitoring Program (CHMP).
Tim was involved in the initial surveys and continued to provide data analysis support
for several years after moving to the Sunshine Coast in 2012.
In recent years Tim has continued to undertake aquatic ecology assessments across
Queensland, including managing and leading an extensive annual fish sampling
program across the Brisbane region. He has also undertaken detailed assessments of
fish assemblages in several catchments within the Brisbane region, including such an
assessment within the Moggill Creek catchment in 2017.
This presentation will provide an overview of fish assemblages in Moggill Creek
covering:
– Native, translocated and introduced pest species recorded in recent times
– Species that appear to have become locally extinct
– Species which may be recorded in the foreseeable future
– Variability in life histories
– Spatial variability in assemblage composition
– The value of long-term monitoring programs (such as the CHMP)
Renewal and Committee Nomination Forms
Open the Membership Renewal Form for 2021 here and Nomination Form for
Committee positions by clicking here.
Fish Survey Training Nov 15th (CHMP)
Recently MCCG obtained funding from the State Government under the Queensland Citizen Science Grants for a program to re-activate our Creek Health Monitoring Program (CHMP), with a particular emphasis on community involvement. The project is led by Adrian Webb and Lewis Peach and aims to survey at least 6 primary sites in the Moggill Creek catchment, (including Moggill, Gold and Savages Creeks) over a period of 3 years. Surveys will be carried out twice a year at each site and will comprise four elements: 1. Water Quality Monitoring, 2. Fish and 3. Macro-invertebrate Surveys and 4. Assessment of structure and composition of the creek bed, bank and riparian zone at each site (including invasive weeds).
The first major event of the program was a Fish Survey Training session on Sunday 15th November, led by Leo Lee from ‘Save Our Waterways Now’ (SOWN), who is an expert on native fish in the greater Brisbane area. The training was held in Gold Creek just inside the Gold Creek Dam site and was attended by 18 enthusiastic volunteers. It was a very hot day, so all of us were happy to get into the creek, although care was taken to disturb the water and the creek bed as little as possible. We learned how to catch fish, both with box net fish traps and with dip nets and to identify some of the more common species, both native and introduced. (All native fish caught were returned to the creek). The event was somewhat hampered by the fact that there was no electrical power to The Cottage due to a fallen tree, which meant that we had no refrigeration, but fortunately Leo had brought a petrol generator, so he was able to conclude the training by showing us some very interesting video clips to reinforce the practical training. Leo is a mine of information and anecdotes about the fish of Moggill and surrounding creeks, so an interesting and entertaining time was had by all, despite the rather oppressive heat.
More information about the Creek Health Monitoring Project
If you would like to become involved in the CHMP, please contact me at: [email protected]
Jim Pope
Jim Pope setting a fish trap (photo: Tracey Read)
Practising with a fish net. (photo: Tracey Read)
Fish ID – Native/non-native (photo: Tracey Read)
Leo Lee presenting at the cottage (photo: Jim Pope)
First Aid Training for MCCG Volunteers
Twelve volunteers recently attended a First Aid training course run specifically for MCCG by St John’s Ambulance and held in Brookfield Hall. The training was organised by Sam Bayford-Brown and funded by Brisbane City Council. It included Cardio-pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) training as well as basic first aid. It was attended by volunteers from our Native Plant Nursery and bushcare groups, as well as several Habitat Brisbane group leaders and MCCG Committee Members. John, the trainer from St John’s Ambulance, did an excellent job under somewhat trying conditions, (it was a very hot day and there is no air-conditioning in Brookfield Hall). John also had to compete with a thunderstorm in the afternoon and numerous police ambulance sirens, which made the experience somewhat surreal, but perhaps emphasised that accidents can occur at anytime and it is best to be prepared!
Many thanks to Sam for cajoling so many of us into updating our first aid training and to Donna Edwards and Simon Fox from Brisbane City Council (Community Conservation Partnerships/Habitat Brisbane) for supporting the initiative.
Attendees at First Aid Training in Brookfield Hall
2020 Photography Competition Winners
The 2020 MCCG Photography Competition successfully concluded with a fabulous selection of photographs wowing the public at Kenmore Village recently. See all the category winners here.
Thank you to all the volunteers, contributors, supporters and sponsors for making this annual event such a success!
Water Dragon by William McConaghy
Could we be doing more to help our feathered neighbours?
In his penultimate issue of Feather Fascination, Jim Butler reminds us of the importance of looking after habitats, nature and in essence our future too. The consequences of climate change are dire for everyone.
To find out more, head to Jim Butler’s Feather Fascination November 2020.
Photo: Tawny Frogmouth and chick – Ed Frazer
