Somewhere over the rainbow…are lots of lorikeets

BirdLife Australia’s national bird survey has counted nearly 5 million birds, with some familiar faces making the list, with the winner taking the gong for the last three years in a row.

The largest citizen science event in the country, the Aussie Backyard Bird Count sees tens of thousands of Australians head outside every year to count birds for BirdLife Australia.

In total, 4,936,509 birds were counted during the 2021 Bird Count, with 623 different species spotted across 162,507 checklists submitted.

The rainbow lorikeet was the most spotted bird Australia-wide, also taking the top spot on a state basis in Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia.

In Tasmania the house sparrow was the top spotted bird, while the Australian magpie took the top spot in the ACT, and the magpie goose in the Northern Territory.

The bulk of the total figure came from Victoria and New South Wales, with almost 3.1 million birds spotted in the two states alone.

And in what many Australians will likely see as good news, the Common Myna – known for its harsh squawk and aggression towards other bird species – is perhaps not as common as it once was.

Also known as the Indian Myna, it dropped out of the national top 10 most common birds this year for the first time.

“Common Mynas have continued their march in recent years, steadily spreading their range over eastern Australia,” National Public Affairs Manager at BirdLife Australia, Sean Dooley said.

“However, we had noticed that it was slowly dropping down the list of most common birds since the Aussie Bird Count started in 2014, and this year it dropped out of the Top 10 for the first time.

To read the full story – Simply click on the following link

https://issuu.com/themooraboolnews/docs/mn_2022-01-25/12

in the 25 January 2022 edition
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