Gazing at large numbers of birds darting overhead may not be ideal for people with Hitchcockian fears but the steady emptying of Australian skies of some species is getting twitchers a little, well, twitchy.
The annual Aussie back yard bird count swooped into action in Melbourne’s Federation Square on Tuesday morning with the expectation that some worrying declines in some of Australia’s most common birds will be confirmed.
BirdLife Australia’s state of Australia’s birds report, released in July, found that well-known species such as the magpie, kookaburra, lorikeet and willie wagtailwere dropping in numbers across large parts of the country.
The backyard count, which encourages people to step out of their house for 20 minutes to count birds, is a less rigorous exercise. Last year’s effort included reports of penguins in the Murray river, after all.
But the count is expected to highlight the level of concern over Australia’s birds that recently prompted a federal government plan to save some of the most threatened of our feathered friends, including the helmeted honeyeater and the night parrot.
The concrete-slathered Federation Square may not be a birders’ paradise but even here a total of seven species were spotted in 20 minutes, including – of course – the rock dove, or pigeon.
The highlight was probably two bright flashes identified as lorikeets by the experts at BirdLife Australia as handlers fed two celebrity birds – Min Min the one-eyed barn owl and Kevy the nankeen kestrel – perched on gloves. Children happily scribbled colours into outlines of hawks and eagles on paper.
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