What’s happening to Victoria’s Red Wattlebirds?
In the opening weeks of 2019, I’ve been wondering why I haven’t seen as many Red Wattlebirds in the state of Victoria as I usually would.
The Red Wattlebird is a honeyeater found across the south of Australia. It’s big, it’s loud, and it’s known to chase smaller birds — it’s hard to miss!
So when I tell other Australian birders I’m suspicious about an apparent decline, the most common response is “well, there are plenty at my place”. The less charitable might also offer: “I don’t like them anyway”!
What data do we have?
I’m a keen eBirder — with thousands of others, I use a mobile app to create checklists for eBird of what birds I see, when I see them, and where. With that data, we have an insight into bird abundance and diversity across the world.
I started by comparing the first eleven weeks of 2019 with the same period over each of the previous four years. eBird tells me the frequency of Red Wattlebird records from complete checklists submitted in Victoria:
So, the apparent decline I noticed in these opening months of 2019 is at least somewhat supported by eBird data.
Why the decline? Is it because of low rainfall in recent years? Changing habits of eBird users? I can’t tell yet, but it’s interesting to speculate.
Zooming out
I can also sample the last five complete years. So, again from eBird, here is the frequency of Red Wattlebird sightings in Victoria over the last five complete calendar years:
Taking into account data across the whole year, we see more variability. However, like the first table, we see that 2018 has the lowest-to-date frequency of Red Wattlebird records.
It’ll be interesting to see how 2019 turns out — based on what I’ve seen so far, I suspect this will be another low year.
What does it mean?
It’s hard to draw conclusions based only on this data. I encourage others to do their own research.
BirdLife Australia is already advocating for the more than forty species of woodland birds that are threatened as a result of inappropriate land use.
Is it possible that the large and common Red Wattlebird might also join that unfortunate list?
