Grassy Woodlands once covered most of the inland slopes of SE Australia, across the now extensively cleared wheat and sheep belt. There are less than 5% of these woodlands left and many are small and not connected to other woodland patches.
Broadscale clearing of native vegetation, increasing fragmentation of native vegetation, degradation and loss of remnants and lack of replacement of plants (few young plants to replace ageing vegetation) are major threats to our native birds.
Some species of woodland birds have declined significantly due to loss of this habitat and other factors, several are on the edge of extinction in some areas, and some no longer occur in places where they used to be found. As well as habitat loss, there are other pressures, especially on small isolated populations of birds, from introduced stock and feral predators, roaming domestic pets, salinity, fire, drought and climate change.
A number of our woodland birds are now listed as threatened birds under legislation in the ACT and NSW