Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park

Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park

Website of the Friends Group – Information about working bees and monitoring projects. As well as flora and fauna pictures and descriptions

Category: Fauna

Lyrebird Survey 2018 Results

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Another great turnout of 34 volunteers for this year’s survey, our annual Lyrebird Survey is by far our most popular activity and once again we were able to cover all 16 monitoring sites.

Weather conditions were quite good, at 5.30am heading up to Balook there was a substantial amount of moonlight with a clear sky and some cold air, At Balook however it was darker because of cloud cover blocking the moonlight and there was a slight breeze in the treetops.

Our full crew of volunteers arrived in good time and by 6.30am everyone had arrived and signed in and by 6.45am everyone had been briefed on their tasks and had headed out in the dark to their assigned monitoring stations.

Once in position there ended up being quite an unexpectedly long wait until Lyrebird calls were first heard, only a couple of locations recorded birds calling before 7am; which was when the majority of the sites started hearing birds, the latest any group had to wait to record any calls was 7.10am.  Last year (2017) every site had birds calling by 6.55am.

The official sunrise time for Saturday June 2nd at Balook was 7.22am and first light was scheduled to appear at 6.52am which was almost identical to last year.

From our results we detected 8 birds calling in our search area, this figure was slightly down on recent years. It is hard to read too much into one years results but potentially the dry summer and autumn we have experience may be having an impact. Most birds appeared to be calling from forest areas with established Eucalyptus over-storey or rainforest. It would be great if some action can be taken to re-establish the original canopy species into areas of the park that have been degraded.

As usual we only count birds that are detected by at least 2 monitoring stations and some stations heard birds calling that were not in our survey area so are not included in the final tally.

Thanks again to AGL who generously supported the breakfast provided for the early rising volunteers.

Lyrebird Survey Results Summary Table 2010-2018

 

 

Year

  

Number of Males Calling

 Monitoring

Points

Covered

(out of 16)

  

 

Weather Conditions
2010 4 9
2011 9 13 Windy making it hard to hear calls, especially in the more exposed sites.
2012 9 12 Still and Calm
2013 3 10 Wet, may have discouraged birds from calling. Several males sighted feeding but not calling.
2014 14 15 Perfect calm morning
2015 6 12 Windy
2016 9 15 Ideal – slight wind, relatively warm
2017 11 16 Ideal – slight wind, relatively warm
2018 8 16 A little overcast with a slight breeze.

Lyrebird Count 2018 150 dpi

David, Vicki & Patrick
Brett & Julie
Some very dedicated volunteers!
Pre-Survey Briefing at the Visitors Centre

Ennominae

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Ennominae are a sub-family of Geometridae. They include tribes Nacophorini (Satin Moths) and Boarmiini (Bark Moths) as well as a number of other smaller tribes.

 

Geometrinae Moths – Emeralds

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The common name (Emeralds) for this Sub-family of moths derives from the fact that many of them are Blue-green in colour.

 

Larentiinae – Carpet Moths

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Larentiinae moths are a sub-family of Geometridae. They are commonly known as Carpet Moths. 28 separate species of Larentiinae have been recorded in Tarra-Bulga National Park.

 

Hepialidae (Ghost Moths)

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To date we have 5 different species of moths in the family Hepialidae recorded in Tarra-Bulga National Park.

 

Arctiidae (Footmen and Tiger Moths)

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To date we have 17 different species of moths in the family Arctiidae recorded in Tarra-Bulga National Park.

“Arctiidae is a large family of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world. This family includes the groups commonly known as tiger moths (or tigers). Tiger moths usually have bright colours, footmen (which are usually much drabber), lichen moths and wasp moths. Many species have ‘hairy’ caterpillars which are popularly known as woolly bears or woolly worms. The scientific name refers to this (Gk. αρκτος = a bear). ”

 

2017 Lyrebird Survey Results

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271A4102 copya
A bumper crew  for this years survey.
  • We had a fantastic turnout of volunteers, which meant that all 16 sites could be covered with at least 2 volunteers at each site. (This is the first time we have covered all 16 sites since at least 2010).
  • Weather conditions were ideal (2nd year running) with little or no wind to muffle the sound of calls and it was not really all that cold!
  • Everyone got out to their respective positions in time; the earliest call was heard at 6.49am and by 6.55am every monitoring station had Lyrebirds calling.
  • The official sunrise time for Saturday Jun 3rd at Balook was 7.23am and first light was scheduled to appear at 6.53am. So, it seems Lyrebirds are fairly well tuned to begin calling at first light.
  • From our results, we detected 11 male birds calling, (not sure if it would be possibly with our method to detect two birds calling in close proximity to each other, but a couple of stations noted the possibility that they could possibly hear multiple birds calling from around the same direction.
  • Note: we only count birds that are detected by at least 2 monitoring stations.
  • This is our second highest number of birds recorded since at least 2010.
  • Thanks to AGL who helped to pay for the breakfast.
  • Results Tablea

Summary of results for the last 8 years.

Lyrebird Count 2017 150dpi
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