The search for Forty-spotted pardalotes
A small Caring for our Country grant through the Understorey Network enabled Sally Bryant and Fiona Hume (TLC) to undertake a follow up survey of the forty-spotted pardalote on Flinders Island in July 2011. Joined by Phil Bell and Matt Webb from the Threatened Species Section DPIPWE, the team spent five days searching areas of white gum in the north and the south of the island.
Forty-spot colonies previously known on Walkers Lookout and Broughams Sugar Loaf were re-surveyed, but no birds were found. Patches of white gum throughout the Darling Range, on the track to Mount Strezelecki and at North East River were searched but no birds were found. Thankfully, the small colony identified in August 2010 in Costers Gully in the Strzelecki Range, south of Bob Smiths Gully, were re-sighted and an identical count of six birds made. While it was terrific to re-sight the species on Flinders Island, there has to be more birds somewhere, and we are determined to find them.
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[Caption:"Fiona Hume scanning white gum in Costers Gully, Strzelecki Range National Park."]
[Caption:"Endangered forty-spotted pardalote Photo Credit: Dave James"]