I recently sighted a pair of Bush Stone Curlews near where I live in Brisbane.Could somebody please tell me if these birds are common around the Brisbane area.
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Gidday mate,Bush stone curlews like areas where there is open timber country.
Having said that there is a pair in our new estate and there is no timber here only cane fields.
I also have seen a pair regulary near some mangroves close to our depot.
Pretty much everywhere I go I usually see a couple so I would say yes they are fairly common.
I have seen them of a night at the BP in Rocklea,Swanbank and there was a pair with young last month when I was in Archerfield.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Tassie.
Hi! Hecate, Can't say I hear them around home(Rochedale South)of a night. However there are perhaps 4 groups of 4~6 birds, spread around the Oxley Golf Club grounds and the adjacent Police Academy.
They nest and seem to spend 1/2 of the year there. They do seem to disappear through winter.
Maybe they are migratory or follow their food sources. The guide books don't mention anything.
Does anybody know?
Cheers!
VJ
Hi Hecate,
I live in an inner Brisbane suburb (Paddington / Red Hill). I, too, recently discovered a pair of Bush Curlews in my area.
I think they have a threatened status in NSW, but are classed as secure elsewhere. However, I don't think that they are very common anywhere (very common = magpies).
I'm wondering where in Brisbane you are located, if you don't mind saying.
Andy.
Gidday Andy,I have to tell you mate that last night I parked up at the back of the mobil servo in Rockhampton and when I got up this morning (it was still dark) there in the truck parking bays were two Curlews.
This place is in the middle of Rocky and it was still dark.
Not to long ago I saw a pair with young in at the QRX depot in Cairns, the boys there had actually declared the area as a no go zone so that the birds were left in peace.
I see them everywhere, especially in the dark hours but oddly I do not see them in the scrub.
They are very common around rail yards,truck yards etc.
If you look in the right places at the right time you will find that there are a lot more of them out there then people think.
One thing I have noticed is that if there is any noise they will decamp very quickly. One last thing, I very rarely here them.
Cheers mate.
Tassie
Hi! Guys I would have thought that curlews were a rare sight around town, but it looks like we are seeing heaps.
May be a bit like Tawny Frogmouths, once you start looking you realise that they may have been there all along, but just wonderfully camouflaged.
As I said earlier in the thread, we have a few resident groups around the Oxley golf course. Each year we see two or three pairs nest. The ground-staff build barricades around the nests to ward off golf balls, golfers and mowers. I've seen guys walk within 1/2 meter of a bird and not see it, till bird lets out a hiss that sounds like a snake of the worst nightmare.
Talking of sounds; here is a sound byte from the ABC archives [url]http://www.abc.net.au/archives/sound/b069001.ram [/url]
Cheers
VJ
Removed.
Karen
Brisbane southside.
My parents live in Petrie, just north of the Brisbane city area and they regularly get curlews in the park opposite their house.
They are a strange bird. I've seen them locally. These were taken at Wynnum North (Brisbane east side). They seem to survive the destruction of habitat so long as they have trees to shelter under.
Karen
Brisbane southside.
We have a pair that breed and live in my work car park and it is a busy place and not the best for the youngsters, but when they have chicks they put a barricade up and put up notifications to let everybody know, which is good. further afield at work we have quite a few spread out in different areas. This is a photo that I took for our work notice board.
Regards
Shane
No photo, Shane. I am glad people are looking after the birds safety. I've seen people do much the same for plovers, which seem to invite disaster the way they nest so close to traffic etc.
Karen
Brisbane southside.
It's a really great sign to see these warnings here & there about the need to protect/avoid/slow down so that native birds can survive. There's even a sign on the edge of Strathalbyn in SA asking the council mowing/spraying contractor to avoid killing the native grasses growing there. These signs are all signs that some folk are alert to the need to protect our biodiversity.
I used to practice with a choir at East Brisbane State School, right in the shadows of the Gabba, and there was a pair that nested around there regularly. You could hear their siren-like call echoing very well with all that concrete around.
I also remember noticing one somewhere I was at just last week - I forget where, but it was somewhere in the suburbs, with a little bit of open space around.
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
I'm keen to learn what it is about cities like Brisbane & Sydney that have bush stone-curlews & superb fairy-wrens in them but the same doesn't apply to Adelaide. One would think it's habitat quality but surely Adelaide's parklands have excellent habitat for stone-curlews yet there's not a stone-curlew in sight. Perhaps they're all on stone-curfew.
As I'm typing, the thought has occurred to me that perhaps it has something to do with the habitat surrounding the cities. I don't know much about Brisbane's hinterland habitat but Sydney has lots of good quality bushland within & outside the city limits, I believe. Unfortunately, the quality of Adelaide's nearby natural habitats has been downgraded by Moodies to about AA-. This results in certain bird species keeping their distance due to poor quality wildlife corridors, perhaps.
I believe that they are reasonably common in Brisbane because I see a few around quite frequently, there even was a pair that raised young in a tiny park at the gabba between the bus interchange and in the grounds of the Lands Building and as for Superb ,Variegated and Red-backed Fairy Wrens they seem to be well represented wherever I go around Brisbane and never considered that Brisbane is an excellent example of good environmental management, but yes maybe there is more bushland around than I have considered, but I imagine Curlews are very susceptible to animal attacks.
Regards
Shane
Thanks for your thoughts, clif2. There are certainly a lot of cat owners in Adelaide (I'm considering buying shares in Cat Food Inc.) & I guess that would be a factor in the absence of superb fairy-wrens. I doubt that it's a factor in the absence of bush stone curlews but who knows?
I first encountered the Bush Stone Curlew in Brisbane City Botanic Gardens (on my daily walk to my office) where I watched over the weeks as a pair raised their sole chick to maturity.
You can generally spot them aroud the gardens somewhere. I've also found them in Bribane's Roma St Parklands.
John & Ros Beeston
CARINA, Qld
Only ever see one of each on the mid- north coast N S W .Bush and Beach curlew , that in the 10 years that I have lived here . So I guess they are not so common around here .
See it! Hear it!
Mid-North Coast NSW