Gang-gang project updates from Michael Mulvaney

To all Gang-gang nest watchers
Thank you so much for your support in locating nest hollows. To date this year we have located

  • 3 nests near Campbelltown, though one of those may have been abandoned following stormy weather
  • a nest on Woodhilll Mountain near Berry
  • a nest at Huskisson
  • 2 nests in Durras area
  • 15 nests in Canberra area
  • a nest at Cascades camping area, Wadbilliga National Park
  • no up-to-date information with the situation in Moruya

Hollows have been searched for in the Southern Highlands, the Albury-Wodonga area, the vicinity of Wombat State Forest and the Greater Melbourne area - but no luck yet. It seems likely we'll track down a nest in the Southern Highlands, there's been activity at Plenty Gorge and we are close to nailing down a location of an East Gippsland nest. The height of hollows in the Canberra area (average 7.5m) is much less than the 20m+ average elsewhere and hence are a lot easier to find. Nevertheless we already have enough 'non-Canberra' hollows to finalise our paper on the relationship of fledging time to altitude. Hollows in the Cooma and Tumbarumba areas will be checked next week.

The first hatching of eggs in a hollow in Canberra were on or around 27 November. Which means we are expecting our first fledging around 15-20 January, which is 2-3 weeks behind what it has been in the past. If this trend occurs across the Gang-gang range then we can expect the Huskisson, Campbelltown and Durras nests to fledge from about 20 December onwards. 

Please keep your eye out for and collect Gang-gang feathers for sending to Stacey. For details see https://www.environment.act.gov.au/nature-conservation/conservation-and-ecological-communities/gang-gang-cockatoo-feather-collection-project

With the help of Stacey and Laura (ACT government), wildlife cameras have been placed above several Canberra nest hollows in order to get better information on predator visitation and predation. Your watching and in particular the number of chicks fledged per hollow will tell us much about breeding success.

UPDATE: Thanks again for all your watching and reporting, we are learning a lot that was previously unknown about this cockatoo. In my last update I stated that we were expecting fledging in Canberra to be delayed by at least 2 -3 weeks. We have now found 18 nests and been able to count eggs or chicks in about 12 of these. In 11 of these, there were either eggs, newborn chicks or as in the nest at Campbell Park a combination of both (one egg two chicks). Then we found a nest on Mt Ainslie and to our surprise it contained two well advanced female chicks that seem to be close to fledging - at least we think within the next 3 weeks - which would be equivalent to our earliest fledging time - so fledging at the one vicinity can be widely staggered - the two nests are only a few kilometres apart at about the same altitude.

Michael Mulvaney
If you have any data or sightings please email mulvaney@netspeed.com.au
Join project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gang-gang-nests-tree-hollows-search

Posted on December 4, 2022 10:12 AM by barv barv

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