Birds – In The Wild
So what, I see them every day, you might say.
And therein lies my point, we do but the world doesn’t. There is an old saying,
“I can’t see the forest for the trees.” It is true, I have experienced it and I know others that have too. The flip side of this saying is, if you are high on a mountain and can see 360 deg, ‘you can’t see the trees for the forest’.
Correspondingly, I believe, we in East Gippsland ‘cannot see the abundant flock for the birds’! We see such abundance of birds everyday that we do not realise the size or variety and rareness of our native birds. Or don’t care.
We have approximately 833 species in Australia, 27th in the world. East Gippsland has approximately 286 of them. This places East Gippsland with more species of birds than approximately 70 other countries in the world.
Birds of Paradise, bowerbirds and Lyrebirds are found only in Australia and Papua New Guinea and almost as unique are
the Fairy Wrens. Excluding the Bird of Paradise, we have the other three species here in East Gippsland.
Parrots are found across the world, but nowhere else has the variety, many being unique to Australia and we have them all here in East Gippsland – cockatoos, nectar feeding lorikeets and ground feeding parrots. We also have one of the rarest parrots in the world, so rare we hardly know about it. There are only four or five ground parrot species in the world, two are endemic to Australia.
We have one here in East Gippsland called the ground parrot. It is nocturnal and very elusive. The other one is called the night parrot and it lives in the desert, possibly extinct.
The above mentioned birds are just the start of a long line of magnificent, colourful and wonderfully vibrant species. I am thinking of wrens, robins, finches, doves, eagles, owls,
and so many more. We do have something to crow about.
We have two significant international sites here too. The Macleod’s Morass Wetlands Ramsar-listing. And the now defunct Rotamah Island Bird Observatory. So little known locally, but worldly enough to attract Prince Charles (now King) and Lady Diana for a visit in 1985.
But the birds are still there. These two internationally known sites alone are something to shout about.
Why not share our natural fortune with the world and invite them to see for themselves the Birds In The Wild. Not through a screen or zoo or sanctuary but through their own eyeballs. Naturally this has to be done with zero effect to the flora and fauna.
This is an occasion for individuals, small business, small towns and small communities to gain a share of opportunity that usually goes to larger centres. However those larger centres will get a flow on economic effect too.
This venture is environmentally sustainable and biodiversly safe and can be and must be kept that way. After all, the idea is for eyeball and camera contact only.
The majority of birds are easily accessible and eyeballed from existing infrastructure and 100s of public sites, that requires little capital expenditure to achieve.
There will be capital needed to eyeball the more elusive and remote birds. This is the opportunity for individuals, farmers or small business; imagine a weekend retreat to watch the Wedge Tail Eagles sore around the cliffs of Tubbut or listen to the lyrics of a lyrebird ring in the hills. As all of the opportunity exists the only money required is for a quality promotion campaign to the world.
There are thousands of bird societies, ornithology associations, avian studies, bird friends and more, that the market already exists.
All that is needed is the quality campaign to bring the world here and unlock the economic advantage to us.
