Birds at Westbury Reserve

Image 1: the dusky robin watches for prey while perched on the side of trunks and stumps.

Image 2: the scarlet robin.

Image 3: the striated pardalote builds its nest in small hollows or splits in trunks and branches.

Image 4: the yellow-throated honeyeater nests close to the ground.

Observing nature Sarah Lloyd

ONE OF the most memorable observations during an early spring outing to Westbury Reserve was the repetitive ‘pick-it-up’ singing of striated pardalotes.

These tiny birds build their nests in small hollows or splits in the trunks and branches of the eucalypts that are abundant at the reserve.

Pardalotes are among the most specialised feeders in eucalypt forests and woodlands. They use their chunky bills to peck insects and sugary secretions from eucalypt leaves.

I’ve visited the reserve many times since then to document as much as possible (from slime moulds to devils!), so I know the area well.

For instance, I usually hear yellow-throated honeyeaters and eastern spinebills just north of the gate, a scarlet robin lives close to the entrance, and families of brown thornbills and grey fantails are active along the track.

Despite what their ability to fly might suggest, birds are very faithful to a location.

Year after year migratory striated pardalotes return to breed in the same eucalypt – if it’s still there.

It has been fascinating to observe the succession of insects with the changing seasons, but what interests me most are the birds, and not just the rare and endangered species, but the so-called common ones, whose absence or declines I (and others) have documented elsewhere.

Yellow-throated honeyeaters, grey shrike-thrush, dusky robins and migratory satin flycatchers have ‘dropped out’ at other sites in the region yet they have bred successfully at the reserve in 2020–21.

This is because the reserve has all the habitat features these different species need.

It has plenty of places where different species nest such as young and old eucalypts of various species, smaller trees like wattles and prickly moses, and patches of shrubbery.

It has nest building material such as grass, rootlets, moss, twiglets and spiders’ web.

It has dense vegetation where birds can shelter from inclement weather and hide from predators.

Most birds are very particular about where they build their nests and where they feed. For instance, the yellow-throated

honeyeater nests close to the ground, but searches for invertebrates (insects and spiders) on the trunks and branches of eucalypts.

Golden whistlers and grey fantails nest in mid-storey vegetation but whistlers snatch their invertebrate prey from foliage whereas fantails take tiny flying insects from the air.

The dusky robin nests in a variety of places, and characteristically watches the ground for prey while perched on the side of trunks and stumps.

Satin flycatchers are the fussiest of all. They construct their nests on a horizontal dead branch, 5 to 15 meters above the ground, usually under live vegetation.

Sticky spiders’ web is crucial for binding their nesting material and cementing the nest to the branch.

These birds have declined elsewhere because, for a range of different reasons, their habitat has been destroyed.

They desperately need places like Westbury Reserve and other reserves on private and public land so they can maintain viable populations.

Sarah Lloyd OAM