Rosella Feathers 2 September 2010

Armchair Twitch™

September Sunday 26 - The Armchair Twitch webpage has full details, including an online registration form. Everyone, regardless of age or mobility can enjoy this. Pick your favourite hotspot, set up with friends and family, binoculars, scopes, food, drink and field guides. Registration is used for administration costs. Encourage sponsor donations (tax deductible receipts for $2 or more). Make 2010 another good year for the birds. Visit our website and complete the online registration form today, (or if preferring a paper version, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and join the fun and relaxing Twitch on 26th September. Please direct enquiries to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Bundamba Wetlands Survey

Saturday, September 4 (7:30 am) Join Margaret and her group for an hour or two of birding beside the Lagoon. Beginners welcome. BASQ has been doing monthly surveys at Bundamba Lagoon (also known as Daly’s Lagoon), south of Ripley near Ipswich, since March 2005 – with a break from March 2007 to November 2008 because it was dry or almost dry.. Over 40 BASQ members have taken part. When the Lagoon refilled on 19 November 2008 – 160mm of rain fell overnight! - we were excited to see the ducks and other waterbirds return and soon there were lots of nests, and chicks and ducklings. Experts told us then it would take 18 months to 2 years to return to normal.

It looks “normal” now – the water level is pretty high, and we regularly record 6 or 7 species of ducks, fish-eating birds like cormorants and darters, many Australasian grebes, more Buff-banded Rails than in our early surveys, etc – many species, very enjoyable, but numbers are still low compared to earlier years.

Many of OUR birds are still away, benefiting from the amazing wetlands caused by the floods in western Queensland and the inland.
The best news of  2010 is that the pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles, which left during the drought but returned in February 2009, are nesting for the first time since we have known them, and at the time of writing, their behaviour suggests they may have chicks.
There’s still plenty to see, and visitors and newcomers are always welcome on monthly surveys on the first Saturday of the month. (But we do start early – 6am or 6.30am from October to May.)

See the Activities page for reports of earlier surveys. Contact Margaret Cameron (07 3282 9151).

BCC Land for Wildlife Spring Surveys

Sat-Sun October 9-10. Early morning surveys of properties of selected members of Council’s Conservation Partnerships program. Surveys are conducted on each property at dawn in summer, autumn, winter and spring each year. Volunteers including newbies  are welcome to join us. For more information see webpage. For time and meeting place contact Dez Wells (07 3886 8055).

Regent Honeyeater/Swift Parrot Surveys

 For more information see webpage.

Urban Corridor Bird Surveys.

Surveys along Brisbane Creeks at Bushcare group planting areas. Download directions. For more information, contact Philip Coorey (0416 936 069).

Mt Barney Lodge BirdWeek

September 8-12   The bird week will be held during National Threatened Species Week. Over one exciting week, Mount Barney Lodge will be hosting bird experts who will conduct guided tours, slideshows and structured workshops to extend your birding knowledge. This program is suitable for amateur or intermediate birders.
Barry Davies from Gondwana Guides (Winner of the 2005 and 2009 Australian EcoGuide of the Year) will be the lead guide for the field trips and guided birdwalks. Barry is well known nationally and internationally for his birding expertise..For more information: Mt Barney Lodge Birdweek

Glossy Black-Cockatoo Birding Day

Following the successful inaugural Glossy Black-Cockatoo Birding Day held on the Gold Coast in May 2009 where 51 birds were reported, Conservancy partners is expanding the event to cover southeast QLD and northeast NSW on 31st October 2010. The event will be conducted on a shire-wide basis with each region having its own coordinator. Sign up now to participate in this event and be in line for great giveaways!  More details see webpage.

Birds In Back Yards – New Project Officer

Latest e-news is on the BIBY web site – check it out. Dr. Holly Parsons, Program Manager, Birds in Backyards Program
 Birds Australia, Bird Discovery Centre,
 Mon-Tues: (02) 9647 1875, Wed-Fri: 0403173060
 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

2010 Rufous Scrub-bird Surveys & Volunteer Training

The Threatened Bird Network has appealed for help in the recovery of the threatened Rufous Scrub-bird asking for volunteers to get involved in surveys that will help assess its current status.

Five Important Bird Areas (IBAs) have been designated for the Rufous Scrub-bird, four of them in NSW and one on the NSW-Queensland border. Beginning this September, surveys will be undertaken in the Barrington Tops & Gloucester Tops IBA, the New England IBA, the Gibraltar IBA, the Scenic Rim IBA and the Werrikimbe IBA. If you live in or near any of those IBAs, or you’d like to help with the surveys, or be involved in other ways, we’d love to hear from you. Training is available for all observers. An initial training campout and survey at Barrington Tops in NSW is being organised by Hunter Bird Observers Club (HBOC), trialling methodology based on earlier work and developed by HBOC, the Birds Australia IBA project and the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW).

The training campout/survey and follow up survey at Gloucester Tops are scheduled on September 15-17 and October 11-13. Surveys at other locations are being planned. The birding groups and DECCW staff who are organising the surveys would love your help. Come along and participate in the listening surveys, or provide logistical support. What do you need to take part? For field surveys, we need people with some time, a degree of physical fitness and good bird identification skills. CDs with Rufous Scrub-bird calls will be provided for everyone who participates, so you don’t need to be immediately familiar with the (very loud!) calls of this famous mimic. If you are Interested please contact Peter Marsh from BASNA. - Phone: 02 9810 4264 - Mobile: 0414 810 426 - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it :

Fork-tailed Swift in Australia

Huw Williams – researcher with John Downer Productions, a wildlife production company based in the UK, is working on a series for the BBC that focuses on the spectacular bird migrations of the world. We feel that Australia is going to be a very strong chapter of this series as we follow the various bird species around the dramatic sights of the Australian landscape. " I am currently looking into the migration of the Fork-tailed Swift, as it travels south from Asia and through Australia. I was wondering whether you might be able to help me with this or know of someone who can? Our series focuses on the most dramatic and spectacular sights of the natural world. Bearing this in mind, we hope to capture the Fork-tailed Swift gathering in great numbers in Australia. I have so far struggled to find places where this particular behaviour can be observed. However, that is not to say it doesn't happen. I have searched for billabongs or other areas of water where the bird's food source might gather in an otherwise barren landscape such as the outback.

There are however, very few accounts where any significant numbers have been seen together. Having said that, I have heard of 90,000 swifts located around the city of Mildura. Although this was back in 1960, this kind of spectacle is ideal and just what we are after. It would be great to know of areas such as this and how easily you can rely on seeing such a spectacle at certain times of the year? Any information you might have would go a long way to helping us here at JDP, and would be much appreciated." Huw Williams.

Items of Note from the Committee

NOTE – this section has news from committee and elsewhere that is of interest. Any information you’d like to share? Please contact Jared Khu –

•  Eric Anderson presented a talk on August 7 to the Sunshine Coast Conservation Forum 2010 – Biodiversity – Bridging the Gap – on the subject “Conserving the Glossy Black-cockatoo”. Eric also attended the GBCC 3 August meeting in Logan

•  BASQ continues to support the Eremaea Website financially. We note a lot of hits being recorded for the Birdline sector of the website. Ethabuka bird lists will be added to the site.

•  The Stock Routes Coalition website has been sponsored by BASQ from its outset, and committee will review this in October to evaluate continuation depending on where the legislation is at present. Information is that 95% of the log points from SRC have been accepted and will be included the legislation.

•  Log in the dates 14-23 October 2011 for next year at a Crows Nest Bird Fair in conjunction with the Crows Nest Festival 2011. Have a look at www.crowsnest.info/content/view/529/7/ for some more information. The popularity of Bird Fairs internationally is notable – see the June 2010 Wingspan.

• New edition of SIMPSON & DAY: this new extensively revised 2010 eighth edition of "Field Guide to the Birds of  Australia" is now available.

•  Chris Armstrong accepted appointment at BASQ’s representative on the BA Occupational Health and Safety Committee.

•  Dez Wells accepted appointment to BA ‘s National Education Committee.

•  Dez Wells (as BASQ’s IBA Coordinator) is working on a calendar for surveys of various IBAs.

•  BASQ is working on the best way to set up a Branch network to increase contact and activity with the various groups in our regional area.

•  BASQ committee is looking at ideas to promote the BA Student membership (only $25) with a suitable flier to advertise it and encourage youngsters to join up. And for parents/grandparents to gift membership.

•  Ross & Cathy Smith and a few others headed out to Western Queensland to do surveys around Currawinya NP from September 6-25th  at the northern end of the Paroo Floodplain ad Currawinya IBA.

Coming Events

See the BASQ Events page for a complete list of events.

BASQ Committee 2010

Convenor: Dez Wells; 
Deputy Convenor: Eric Anderson;
 Secretary: Simon Stirrat;
 Treasurer: Paul Matthews;


Committee: Jared Khu, Julie Sarna, Paul Finn, Brad Dreis, Phil Coorey, Ross Smith



More members are encouraged to take up committee positions. There are still vacancies. Contact Dez Wells, Convenor, 07 3886 8055 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

BASQ sub-committees –
Conservation – Eric Anderson (Chair), Brad Dreis, Paul Finn, Simon Stirrat, Dez Wells.     
Communications – Ross Smith (Chair), Jared Khu, Gil Porter, Grahame Rogers, Dez Wells.        
Development -  Dez Wells (Chair), Eric Anderson, Paul Matthews.

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