The Aussie Bird Count — which involves observing and counting birds that live near you, in your garden, the local park, by the river or even outside your office window — is on this month.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
It’s a great opportunity to head out and see if you can spot a treecreeper, the bird species featured this month in the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority’s Year of the Tree Hollow.
Goulburn Broken CMA project officer Janice Mentiplay-Smith said the hollow-dependent brown treecreeper (Climacteris picumnus) got its name to its habit of spiralling up tree trunks to probe and prise the bark for larvae, insects and other tasty morsels.
“Large old trees are important for birds like the brown treecreeper as bigger trees, with their broad trunks and plentiful branches, contain more surface area which translates to more feeding opportunities,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.
“It’s much more energy efficient and safer for a brown treecreeper, as it is for most birds and animals, to meet their energy requirements from one large tree with plenty of bark and food, than it is for them to undertake high risk and high energy consuming movement to several smaller trees for the same result.
“While the brown treecreeper spends a great deal of time climbing the trunks and limbs of trees to probe the bark for food, it also searches the ground for its next meal, demonstrating the value of and need for ‘messy’ ground layers of sticks, logs and shrubs where its insect meals reside.”
Brown treecreepers are highly sociable birds and will often live and breed communally.
With the assistance of the broader brown treecreeper community, the breeding pair build their nest in a tree hollow in a large old tree, using pieces of twig, grass, leaves, bark, dung, animal fur and sometimes even pieces of human litter.
A white-throated treecreeper. Photo: Russell Jones.
Also tree hollow-dependent is the white-throated treecreeper (Cormobates leucophaea), which resides in more heavily timbered forests — unlike the brown treecreeper, which prefers open woodland.
“Where the brown treecreeper spends time on the ground foraging for food, the white-throated treecreeper rarely descends from the treetops,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.
“If the territories of the two birds do overlap, they tend to feed from different species of tree as the white-throated treecreeper will select trees with looser tree bark to prise beneath. This way, they avoid stepping on each other’s toes.
“Unlike the brown treecreeper and their many helpers, the female white-throated treecreeper builds the nest in a tree cavity lined with bark, fur and hair and incubates the eggs on her own, but both sexes care for the young.”
The BirdLife Australia Aussie Bird Count is on from October 20 to 26 where participants spend 20 minutes counting and recording the birds they see. The event is designed for all ages and skill levels.
The data collected helps BirdLife Australia understand local bird populations and trends, contributing to conservation efforts. Go to: https://aussiebirdcount.org.au
