The Bird Emergency

Dr. Sally Bryant is the Chair of the Forty-spotted Pardalote Recovery Team. The Recovery Plan for the 40-Spot is currently being updated, so the team are busy doing that. (Yes, I know we love this bird!).

Over more than 30 years, Sally has worked in government and in the non-government and private sectors that are becoming increasingly important in order to adequately protect species, intact habitat and to repair potentially suitable habitat for ongoing mananagement of endangered species.

Get much more details about her wonderful career (and download the current version of the Recovery Plan) at thebirdemergency.com/SallyBryant

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

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If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

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And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birde

If you have a copy of the Australian Bird Guide, then you already are familiar with some of the work of Rohan Clarke. If you have been a keen Bird Nerd for many, many years, and consume as much information as you can about Australian Birds, then you have probably read many articles where Rohan is an author, or cited as a reference. (I know I have!)

Rohan is an ecologist and ornithologist, is a Master of Environment and Sustainability, a Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Head of the 'Research Ecology' lab, in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University.

While Rohan is widely known for his interest in avian ecology, he has also done a lot of work with animals of all sorts, and is now shaping the careers of young ecologists, working on research projects of all sorts.

Follow Rohan on Twitter for some fabulous bird and ecology content, particularly great pics, and some sightings updates - https://twitter.com/rohanclarke01

Here is the link to Rohan's lab (consider a career in STEM?) https://www.researchecology.com.au/

Here are a couple of recent papers that have come out of Rohan's lab at Monash University;

This one is on the response to the Black Sat Bushfires and the Bristlebird rescue (open access) https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/csp2.606…

This one on some of the recent translocation work (and led by PhD student Will Mitchell) https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/csp2.569

And this one is on Giant Centipedes and seabirds on Norfolk Island and the fact that the centipedes structure the food web (led by PhD student Luke Halpin) https://journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/715702

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

Dr. Holly Parsons, Manager of the Urban Birds Program at Birdlife Australia, and Grant Williams recently spoke with Dr. Joe Welklin, one of the principal researchers who originated The Fairywren Project, which has been looking into the ecology, distribution and relationships between the genus Malurus, better know as Fairywrens, in Australia.

To see much more detail, the habitat photographs provided by Joe and all the updates regarding the follow-up live stream coming up on Monday May 30th, just head over to thebirdemergency.com/fairywrens

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

This episode began as a celebration of one of the most curiously named, most loved and interesting migratory species of North and Central America, the Prothonotary Warbler. It became a very free-flowing and wide-ranging discussion about a bird that Jarod is obviously very passionate about, his connection to the migratory birds that he sees and appreciates each season, and the efforts he takes to encourage the PROWs that visit his area to breed in artificial nest boxes, made from juice or milk cartons.

The Prothonotary Warbler breeds in the northern parts of the USA and Canada in wooded country, but heads south to avoid the northern winter to spend the cooler months in mangroves in central America.

It's a bit of fun, as Grant and Jarod appreciate a mutual love of birds, albeit in very different places.

Visit the page for this episode on thebirdemergency.com/PROW for a lot of great photos provided by Jarod.

Follow Jarod Hitchings on Twitter - @ilwarblers

Check out the Rare Bird Alert Facebook Group for Jarod's area

Bob Dolgan is also a big fan of the Prothonotary Warbler, and has produced some very striking T-shirts that celebrate the PROW. You can check out one of Bob's articles here, and also check out the t-shirt.

Interested in a fabulous Prothonotary Warbler T-shirt, that will also send some money towards the American Bird Conservancy? Then follow this link...

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

Celebrating World Migratory Bird Day (WorldMigratoryBirdDay.org) and this episode we talk to Scott Pursner from the Taiwan Wild Bird Federation about the birds that move thorough Taiwan, that reside in Taiwan and the reclaimation project to maintain some disused salt pans, that had become important habitat for some rare bird species.

Scott talks about the variation of the habitats that are present on Taiwain, the co-operation of the different conservation groups, citizen science and the awareness of birds by the people of Taiwan. Scott talks about the efforts to preserve disused salt pans that had become important habitat for shorebirds when the industry had ceased.

Check out Taiwan Wild Bird Federation website here

Follow TWBF on Twitter

Maybe you prefer TWBF on Facebook or

Perhaps on Instagram

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

Celebrating World Migratory Bird Day (WorldMigratoryBirdDay.org), PhD candidate, David Tan, tells us about the stunning Pittas that needlessly fall victim to BirdStrike as the migrate thorough SIngapore, why SIngapore is a great birding spot, and his adventures in Arizona, a bird hotspot in the USA.

Visit David's website - https://davidbirdtan.com/

Follow David on Twitter - @g33k5p34k

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

Photo courtesy - Marcus Salton

What could be for fun than talking again about penguins, with somebody who has summed up their research project in a haiku?

Well, in this episode, as part of the @PintOfScienceAU Takeover for 2022, you will meet Javed Riaz, who is a undertaking PhD studies on the foraging habits and prey of the Adelie Penguin, in the Australian Antarctic territory.

Adélie penguins are indicators of the health of their ecosystem. By studying the foraging behaviour and habitat, Javed expects to further understand the movement behaviour and foraging strategies of Adélie penguins, and their relationship with oceanographic parameters and the regional prey-field.

This is critical knowledge in order to highlight regional forage areas and predict likely impacts and responses under future krill harvesting and climate scenarios.

Research project in a haiku: Adelie penguins Diving and foraging Among the sea ice

Here is a link to a summary of Javed's research - https://mpredlab.org/team/javed-riaz

Follow Javed on Twitter - https://twitter.com/JavedZRiaz

Check out these other accounts on Twitter if you are interested in Antarctic research coming out of Australia;

Australian Antarctic Division: @AusAntarctic

IMAS: @IMASUTAS

Marine Predator Lab: @mpred_lab

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

Something we have returned to time and time again in The Bird Emergency is how we have removed the nesting opportunities for birds that require hollows, and the need for shelter by all sorts of wildlife.

Thankfully, there are many people looking at other options, other than waiting 100 years or so for natural hollows to form.

Dr. Kylie Soanes tells me about some of the options being explored in Melbourne, and some of the new materials being employed.

Here's a link to a Pursuit article about Dan's fancy nest boxes that we were discussing; https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/new-design-tech-offers-hope-for-urban-wildlife and the paper itself, which is open access https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13806 Follow Kylie on Twitter here - https://twitter.com/kyliesoanes Kylie is a bit of a rockstar on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@drkyliesoanes You can check out the work of Kylie's lab, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences , The University of Melbourne - www.lifeontheverge.com.au

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

Have you ever considered brushing up on your bird-watching skills in a more formal and structured way? Are you just starting out and would like to get a headstart on the years it takes to get to know the best methods to identify any bird you see around you? Do you have kids, or know someone who is just getting into the great pasttime of bird-watching, and you would like to encourage them to take the interest further?

If you thought "YES" to any of those things, then you might be interested in a new course being run by Ricki Coughlan, ornithologist and very experienced bird-watching guide.

Ricki told me about the reasons for the course, how it is structured, and how anyone will benefit from it.

Enrolment is open now!

You can enrol in the course here. - https://aussiewild.com.au/bird-watching

Follow Ricki on Twitter - @RickiCoughlan

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency

As we move from traditional power generation methods we may be introducing significant new threats into the landscape.

For many years Hamish Cumming has been trying to protect the Brolgas of western Victoria against the proliferation of windfarms in the prime habitat of the southern population of the Brolga, one of Australia's two crane species, and the only endemic.

Trying to increase the safe buffer zone distance between wind turbines and the feeding, roosting and breeding grounds of the Brolga has been a long term commitment by Hamish.

You may be surprised how a government department charged with protecting vulnerable species can behave. I hope you learn something about Brolgas, and gain some insight about the issues that transitioning to a new power-generating economy will raise.

Meet Hamish Cumming and the Brolgas of western Victoria.

You can support the efforts to protect the Brolgas of western Victoria here -

https://www.gofundme.com/f/Save-Southern-Brolgas-from-Extinction

Follow Hamish on Twitter - https://twitter.com/hamishcumming

You can watch many of the past conversations, and see the upsoming interviews live at thebirdemergency.com/live

Subscribe to on The Bird Emergency on YouTube

Follow The Bird Emergency on Twitter @birdemergency or Instagram @thebirdemergency

If you enjoy the show, how about share with your friends or colleagues? https://followthepodcast.com/birdemergency

Or you can review us at https://lovethepodcast.com/birdemergency

And if you want to support what Grant is doing with the show, why not buy him a coffee? (It's currently a flat soy with no sweeteners.) https://www.buymeacoffee.com/birdemergency