April 28th, 2011
Avian Consultant, Nature Educator, Interpretive Sign Artist
My name is Ricki Coughlan. I am an Avian Consultant based in the Tweed region in northern New South Wales. I am a nature educator, presenting birds and running workshops for community groups and environmental organisations. I also create interpretive nature signs, conduct bird surveys and environmental reporting for local government, state government and private interests.
NEWS & NOTES
August 3rd, 2011
Boat Harbour send off
WELL, IT WAS very miserable taking my last looks at those little Red-necked Stints and the cormorants and the gulls and terns of Boat Harbour today as I wrapped up my role in the survey project. Walking down the trail to the beach, my old friend the Australian Kestrel was there, just as he has been every week these past 5 or 6 years, but this time to say farewell. The pipits and cisticolas were there in force and the fairy-wrens were all very active too, bobbing about in the newly regenerated acacia scrub. I sensed that they had a mood of celebration as the breeding season approaches. Just to confirm the coming breeding season, the aural backdrop was filled with much trilling from the growing number of Fan-tailed Cuckoos making their ominous presence felt – I had a very nice view of one sitting on a fenceline when driving in to the top car park. more »
August 2nd, 2011
Seeing beneath the sediment
IT IS NOT UNCOMMON for naturalists to believe that the selective forces in nature are obstacles and difficulties which are heroically overcome by individuals which pass their superior genes onto their kind, driving the patterns of diversity and abundance on earth in a process we call “evolution”. However, I don’t think it always works quite like that. I think that the struggle is at once a little more optimistic and elegant: a little more perhaps like water flowing downhill. The way I see it is that nature is an expansive thing, with organisms responding to the pressures of their environment by taking the path of least resistance – of not necessarily troubling over obstacles, but rather constantly and optimistically dashing towards new or favourable opportunities. By taking advantage of physical and environmental opportunities, adopting behaviours which play to their strengths, organisms carve out a passage of survival, living to pass on their genes which, if favourably adapted to their behaviour and surroundings, become extant throughout the population. It’s more like that John Lennon song where he sings “there’s no problems, only solutions”. more »
July 31st, 2011
A Chapter Ends . . .
EVER SINCE returning to Sydney from Broome in 2005 I have been threatening to move up to the NSW north coast. As the time comes to make good my threat, to make that move to peaceful Tyalgum, west of Murwillumbah, I am reflecting on what I have achieved in the past 5 or 6 years of residence in Sydney. Certainly, I have led many birding tours for nature lovers from all over the world, I’ve led many courses and workshops on shorebirds and bush birds, enjoyed Sydney’s best National Parks to the max and given dozens of presentations on birds to various community groups. I hope that I’ve helped to boost the enjoyment of nature and birding aspirations for many. I’ve been fortunate enough to have introduced a number of people to what will hopefully become a lifelong obsession . . . and, of course, I’ve completely indulged in my hobby of Butterfly photography! I can’t ask for much more than the privilege to do these things and I am grateful to all who have given me the opportunity to do so. But now it’s time to say farewell and quickly take stock of two special projects . . . more »
July 22nd, 2011
Sydney fairy-wren identification
IS THERE anyone who doesn’t adore fairy-wrens? The stunning breeding plumage of the males during the warmer months brings plenty of colour into every nature outing and the hives of activity which are the extended family groups of these birds brings plenty of life to the bush and, for the lucky few, their urban gardens. Adding to their charisma is the charm of those perky cocked tails as these tiny gems of the Aussie bush bounce around the understorey.
For many in the Sydney region, however, there is a dark side to these colourful little birds, a source of deep and enduring frustration that leaves bird watchers with a sense of worthlessness in their trade and embarrassed downward glances as they describe circles in the dust of trails with their feet every time they encounter these birds . . . for the uninitiated, the females are simply very difficult to identify, as are the males when not in breeding plumage. more »
July 10th, 2011
New breeding locations found for bird on the brink
Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Image © 2011 Chris Collins.
ONE OF THE WORLD’S great iconic shorebird species, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, is also the most threatened. There are perhaps only dozens of pairs of this species remaining and captive breeding programs under way. How successful this can be for a tiny migratory shorebird is yet to be ascertained, so it is encouraging to hear that a survey conducted by Heritage Expeditions – a Birdlife International “Birdlife Species Champion” – has uncovered hitherto undiscovered breeding locations on the Chukotka coast of Far East Russia. Read more on the BirdLife International site »
July 10th, 2011
Lessons from bark foragers
ANYBODY WHO regularly visits the Australian bush and has an eye for birds will tell you that many Australian birds will spend a little time foraging on the bark of trees and some will spend a fair bit of time foraging on the bark of trees. However, there are only three groups of birds which are totally dedicated to making a living off the bark of trees. Interestingly, although they are only distantly related, they have all devised similar social strategies which can probably tell us a thing or two about the profitability of foraging on bark for a living but may also have some important lessons for helping us understand the viability of remnant bush plots, appropriate management practices and forming better planning guidelines. I think that this is an area crying out for further study . . . more »
June 11th, 2011
Connecting with Wyong’s nature lovers
I’VE NOT LONG AGO arrived home from the last of a series of four presentations on the lives of the Bar-tailed Godwit for Wyong Shire Council’s “Wetlands of Wyong” series of wetland education days. I conducted two presentations in the month of May and two in June. I love these kinds of projects, because they reinforce in me the fact that people do care. They remind me that a flame burns in all of us that shines light on our need to reassert our connection with nature and to celebrate those emotions and the sense of wonder that we all feel through experiencing and contemplating that connection. more »