Gang-gang online July 2003 News from the Canberra Ornithologists Group Inc.
Contents Do birds have mouths? From your committee Membership Fees 2003-04 Other surveys / Activities of interest Minimising Mynas: Expressions of Interst Invited Call For Information: A Review of the Status of Osprey Nesting in NSW Field trip details and reports are available here.

Do birds have mouths?

No, seriously, this is a real question.

	They certainly don’t have lips or teeth. The answer probably depends on how you define ‘mouth’. (If ‘nose’ is defined as the part of the face containing the nostrils, then birds have noses.) Attributing human body parts to animals can be tricky. A famous nineteenth century biologist described a rock-barnacle as ‘lying on its back, holding on by its head and kicking its food into its mouth with its heels’. Is a bird’s bill part of a mouth? It might look like it when you see birds like parrots or cockatoos controlling food in their bills with their tongues. On the other hand, for most long-billed birds the bill is really a food-gathering tool.
Figure 1: Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) Photos courtesy of Geoffrey Dabb
These remarks are simply to invite attention to the food-gathering practices of those bill-wielding spoonbills when they are on close-range display at places like Kellys Swamp. Last spring/summer was an exceptionally good opportunity for this at Kellys (where the accompanying images were obtained).The Yellow-billed Spoonbill, in particular, swings its bill with a metronomic rhythm, not pausing when the spoon at the end of its bill meets a food item.

Maintaining its rhythm, the bird sways back its head as far as it will go, opening its bill at the end of the backswing (figs 2A and 2B). This suspends the morsel between mandibles, then at their widest separation, and may cause it to move slightly in the air towards the head (fig 1). However, the distance between morsel and ‘mouth’ is mainly closed by a quick forward movement of the head, the bird sometimes resuming its probing action in the same stroke (fig 2C). As the bird noticeably distends its gaping throat to receive it, the morsel does not appear to pause in the ‘mouth’ (if there is one). This feeding action, lasting a fraction of a second, involves food-capture by the end of the bill followed by a forward movement of the head to gulp and swallow. The Royal Spoonbill’s action (fig 3) is similar although rather neater, less rhythmic and less camel-like, and that of the ibises (Glossy Ibis at fig 4) is along the same lines but still more economical.

Figure 2

Figure 3: Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia)		Figure 4: Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)

Geoffrey Dabb

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From your committee

MEMBERSHIP FEES for 2003-04 are due from 1 July

Some members have already paid for next year. Please do not pay again. You can tell from the label on your Gang-gang/CBN or by checking with me whether you need to pay or not. If your label says “subscription year 2002-2003” your membership ran out on 30 June 2003.

Please use the renewal form on Page 14 of this Gang-gang when paying. Then we can be sure we have your up to date details and a record of your payment. Why not consider changing to an emailed version of Gang-gang (it’s in colour)?

If you intend not to renew, please let me know so that we do not waste members’ funds on continuing to send out things to after your membership has expired. We give members not renewing quickly after 1 July the benefit of the doubt (ie that they are simply late in renewing and leave them on our mailing list for some time). This is an expensive exercise if they do not then renew their memberships.

Why not take this opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation to the Canberra Birds Conservation Fund? You can use the membership form to do this.

Joan Lipscombe
Treasurer
ph 6262 7975
joanlipscombe@bigpond.com

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Early advice of COG's Xmas Party. We are planning a quiz night for this years December meeting. So keep your diaries clear so that you can join us of a wonderful evening of fun and humour on December 10.

Resignation from the committee of David Rosalky. The committee has regretfully accepted David's resignation from the committee. He has recently been appointed to Board member of the ACT Land Development Agency, which is the government owned "company" actually developing the land allocated to it by the Government, and wished to avoid a potential conflict of interest. Congratulations, David, on your new appointment and thank you for your valuable contribution to the committee over the last couple of years. Keep coming to COG's meetings and outings.

Barbara Allan

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Other Surveys / Activities of Interest to COG Members

SWIFT/REGENT PARROT SURVEY WORKSHOP Sunday 6 July
Debbie Saunders is running a workshop on 6th July in Chiltern for volunteers involved in the Swift / Regent Parrot surveys. If COG members are interested they are more than welcome to attend the workshop (similar to the workshop held in Canberra in 2001) and camp out at Chiltern NP. The workshop will include a field visit to known swift/regent parrot sites within the park in the afternoon. If anyone is interested, they can register their interest with Debbie (swiftparrots@yahoo.com.au or 1800 66 57 66) or Chris Tzaros (Threatened Bird Network, c.tzaros@birdsaustralia.com.au or 03 9882 2622).

NEWLINE SURVEY – regular surveyors note this will be Sunday 6 July, meeting at 8am at the site. Jenny Bounds will confirm arrangements with individuals the week before.

Volunteers are needed for the Barren Grounds annual Gound Parrot survey/census from 9 am to noon on 10 August 2003.
This is one of the longest running monitoring programs in Australia. Members wanting to help with the census on Sunday can join in for no cost. Alternatively there is a weekend course for the special price of $150 ($140 for BA members), which Jack Baker will lead. For more information please contact Jack by E-mail on bakerclarkes@bigpond.com. Alternatively contact Birds Australia Barren Grounds on 02 4236 0195, or by E-mail on barren.grounds@bigpond.com.

THIRD NATIONAL NATIVE GRASSES CONFERENCE
26, 27 & 28 NOVEMBER 2003
COOMA, NSW
"Sustainability and Beyond"
The Stipa conference, supported by Friends of Grasslands, is coming together and so as the advertisement says, keep 26 to 28 November free..

The first day will be a bus tour visiting a number of grazing properties and crown land reserves. Given a normal spring we should see some stunning wildflower displays and also see sites where land management and grassland management decisions come together. Thanks to the South East Catchment Board the bus trip only costs $10 and includes lunch.

Days two and three include a wide range of speakers on building networks and functioning landscapes - integrating production, conservation and function. Sub-themes will cover regional landscape management, on-farm conservation in productive systems, knowing your plants, enhancing functionality, sustaining biodiversity in regional landscapes, and socio-economic aspects of bringing it together. The cost of the conference is $160 including catering. This does not cover the cocktail party, or the formal dinner. We will be privileged to have ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Conservation, Jon Stanhope as the after dinner speaker.

Copies of brochures are available from Margaret Ning - phone 6241 4065 or e-mail margaretning@primus.com.au
Put this in your calendar NOW

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Minimising Mynas: Expressions of Interest Invited

In the December 2002 issue of Gang-gang members were briefed on progress in developing the second stage of this study which is led by Dr Chris Tidemann of the ANU, with COG and Environment ACT also participating. Chris has obtained funding support; traps are being manufactured; and it is hoped that the project will commence in July. The central goal of this stage of the project is to ascertain the impacts on Common Myna density in defined locations of trapping and removing the birds. The trapping will probably be confined to suburbs with reasonably high myna densities.

As part of the task of designing the project we need to establish the extent and nature of COG's involvement. Accordingly, expressions of interest are invited from COG members and other birders to assist with the project. We will need someone to co-ordinate COG's involvement (under the overall project leadership provided by Chris Tidemann) and a number of volunteers to undertake monitoring of mynas (and perhaps some other species) in a systematic manner in the vicinity of the trapping and/or myna roosting sites. In a month or so COG members, as well as the general public, will be invited to register to have traps sited at their homes. The project will run over about one year, with monitoring being undertaken during short periods of perhaps two weeks a number of times throughout the year. It is expected that on-line data entry will be used by the birders undertaking the monitoring, but volunteers without internet access are still welcome to register their expressions of interest.

To let us know that you wish to be involved in the Minimizing Mynas Stage 2 project, or to obtain further information, please contact David Rosalky at email davros@webone.com.au, phone 0418 731 927, as soon as possible. Without volunteer birders it is unlikely that this important project will be able to proceed.

COG Minimizing Myna Project Team (Julie McGuiness, Ian Fraser, David Rosalky & David McDonald ).

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Call For Information: A Review of the Status of Osprey Nesting in NSW

An Ekerlogic Consulting Services (ECS) and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Project funded by the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife.

The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus cristatus) is listed as a Vulnerable species under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. The distribution of the Osprey in NSW is coastal from the NSW/Queensland border to the south coast of NSW, with occasional sightings inland. The Osprey is extremely rare on the south coast and Sydney region, with very few historical and current records. There are occasional sightings around the Central Coast and the Newcastle - Port Stephens region. The Osprey is however, most abundant and widespread from the mid-north to far north coast regions. The distribution of breeding Ospreys from 1977-1988 occurred from Eraring on the Central Coast to the NSW/Queensland border, with a breeding population within this range of approximately 45-50 pairs.

The NSW NPWS (Northern Directorate) has commissioned ECS to undertake a review of the status of nesting Ospreys in NSW. The aim of the project is to prepare an up-to-date inventory of active Osprey nests in NSW, collating existing information from various sources and updating and adding to this information through field surveys. The information will be used by the NPWS to prepare a recovery plan for the species in NSW.

This project relies on the information from a wide range of key National and State organisations, local Councils, birdwatching groups, individual bird watchers and interested members of the public. We are hoping that these groups can provide information on the location of current and previously active Osprey nests. This information will be an important first step in assessing the status of Osprey nesting in NSW. Field surveys, which will occur from June-November 2003 (during the breeding season) will both ground truth this information as well as add the data already available.

If anyone has any information on nesting Ospreys anywhere in NSW, could they please contact Peter Ekert directly on
(02) 49500573 or 0140566104 or email peter@ekerlogic.com.au.

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