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Re: Encouraging and recognising urban gardens for habitat
2005-10-07 17:34:45 UTC
Andrew, One aspect of wildlife friendly gardening to be wary of is that it usually means for most people bird-friendly, and that often ends up being noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala) friendly. Given their range extends over most of Tassie, I assume you have the same problems there that most of the rest of Australia has with these native pests. In a nutshell, they are the most aggressively territorial bird species in the country. They frequent typical farming and urban environs, where they have trees and grass layers, and everything between cleared. And they drive out most other sensitive bird species even kill them using mob attacks. This is a big problem for farming areas through NSW as the big old farm trees (and the younger ones), already weakened by farming impacts, are subject to periodic inundation by lerps (pysillids tiny sap-sucking bugs) and the smaller birds that normally would control these have been driven away by the miners. The result is runaway dieback of the eucalyptus species, with Blakely's redgum, and several of the boxes most prone. Research has been done by La Trobe students at Benalla Victoria on removal/eradication of the miners, and shown rapid return of diverse bird species. At Holbrook NSW, large scale Landcare revegetation (2,000ha+), with a focus on mid-story structure has been aimed at displacing miners and providing sinks for the birds needed to save the trees. Other farmers have taken to periodic culling of miners, much as has become necessary with kangaroos and even wombats in places. Anyhow a google search on the subject will yield stacks of relevant info. So what has this to do with gardening Tim Low wrote an article called "Invasion of the savage honeyeaters" for Nature Australia, where he decried that proliferation of grevillea planting etc for bird-friendly gardens that often end up dominated by miners. It and the approach to better garden design to avoid this problem are discussed in http://www.aildm.com.au/articles/plant%20info/environment_issues.htm So if you can incorporate advice in your promotion that will minimise noisy miner proliferation in the resulting gardens, that would be a good thing. One other idea: as a Councillor with Maroochy Shire in Qld, I introduced waterwise and native categories into the shire gardening competition with great success. Your department could sponsor similar categories throughout Tasmanian Councils competitions. It would give you an avenue to get relevant info and guidance out (including on miners!) to all entrants even those who don't enter those particular categories.
Regards,
Ashley Kerlin
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