Glenfern's resident birder, Mike Sverns, shares with us his recent experience with some special visitors to the reserve, via prose and video...
"It was so exciting to have these small and pretty grey cockatoos resort to our reserve, to feed, drink and roost back in March to April. This is a great reward and a testament to everyone, who have committed so much effort to the reserve over many years.
It became apparent over so many hours of observation, how important the riparian vegetation along Ferny Creek, including the tall mature eucalyptus species were to the Gang-gang Cockatoos.
Many small flocks would form into large ones routinely, flying from different directions, late afternoon after a big day feasting on the introduced Hawthorn Bush. Their favoured seed from the red berry was plentiful in bushes several kilometres away at the southern end of Lysterfield valley.
It must have been a good breeding season too, as most adult pairs had in tow, either a single or two young. The two young would vary from twins of the same sex, or one of each.
This obviously kept both adults busy, disgorging their full crop of seed to top up their young after a well deserved drink from our creek. They then would fly to the high tops of the manna, swamp and messmate that was fruiting at the time, before they would roost and retire, after an affectionate preening and bonding session."
"It was so exciting to have these small and pretty grey cockatoos resort to our reserve, to feed, drink and roost back in March to April. This is a great reward and a testament to everyone, who have committed so much effort to the reserve over many years.
It became apparent over so many hours of observation, how important the riparian vegetation along Ferny Creek, including the tall mature eucalyptus species were to the Gang-gang Cockatoos.
Many small flocks would form into large ones routinely, flying from different directions, late afternoon after a big day feasting on the introduced Hawthorn Bush. Their favoured seed from the red berry was plentiful in bushes several kilometres away at the southern end of Lysterfield valley.
It must have been a good breeding season too, as most adult pairs had in tow, either a single or two young. The two young would vary from twins of the same sex, or one of each.
This obviously kept both adults busy, disgorging their full crop of seed to top up their young after a well deserved drink from our creek. They then would fly to the high tops of the manna, swamp and messmate that was fruiting at the time, before they would roost and retire, after an affectionate preening and bonding session."
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