September was an active month at Wild Bird Rescues with a total of 31 rescues and releases. I took a lot of phone calls from concerned members of the public but fortunately not too many converted into direct action. This is always good news for Gold Coast birds!
Carelessly discarded fishing line continues to be a major threat for all species of foraging birds. Because fishing is so popular I can only see this problem becoming worse. Two or three times every week I walk the two kilometres of rock wall at The Spit collecting discarded fishing line. Following the Father’s Day weekend I collected almost half a kilometre of discarded line (including hooks) … this despite having cleaned the entire area just 4 days earlier. It’s a constant battle with no easy solution, however the effort is well worthwhile because I estimate that line collection has cut down the number of ibis getting entangled by well over 50%. This saves the birds much suffering and saves me time that would otherwise have to be spent catching and freeing them.
I can recall many wonderful stories from September. Some of the highlights follow.
Ting Ting, as I called her, was a 2 month old cygnet (baby black swan) reported in distress with fishing line coming from her mouth and line wrapped around her neck. I located Ting Ting and her parents and sibling in a canal in Mermaid Waters and quickly snatched her away from the family. She was rushed to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital and operated on to remove a fish hook from her throat. As a precaution Ting Ting was held in hospital overnight. I collected her first thing in the morning, then began the urgent search to find her family. There is a window of about 48 hours during which a cygnet can be safely returned to the family without risk of rejection. Any longer can be dodgy. After many hours of searching kilometres of canals I eventually located the family. Ting Ting enjoyed a happy and very loud reunion with her parents and one sibling.
Early in the month a juvenile sea eagle had been found alongside its dead sibling under the nest tree in an Arundel bushland reserve. We called her Robbie. She was rushed to hospital starving and dehydrated. Over the next few weeks a great deal of time and effort was invested by the hospital trying to rehabilitate Robbie in the hope that I could successfully release her. But time was against us. What followed were two failed release attempts where she was unable to gain altitude. At one stage we lost her for three hours in thick bushland.
Ultimately nearly 3 weeks were to pass before we got Robbie into the air in sight of one of her parents (the safe window to re-unite is thought to be about 2 weeks) We hoped for a re-union on the day and continued to observe over the next few days but the re-union seems not to have taken place. Four days later I had to request the fire brigade attend Nerang Caravan Park to help me scale an 8m high jacaranda tree where a sea eagle had clumsily alighted the previous afternoon. It looked like Robbie. She was far from the nest tree and there was no parent in sight. The bird flew before I could secure her. Robbie stands little chance of survival in the wild, not having received the many months of training from her parents, necessary for her to become proficient at fishing. But all hope is not lost. There’s still some chance that she will find enough road kill or another source of food to sustain her. In the meantime I remain vigilant. Robbie is the fourth majestic bird of this species that I had to assist during a 5 week period encompassing part of September.
The most satisfying rescue for the month was a darter (similar to a cormorant) with plastic mesh caught in the serrations at the end of its beak. Unfortunately these entanglements are becoming more frequent due to the huge amount of rubbish and detritus in our waterways. Invariably beak entanglements result in death by starvation.
Darters are notoriously difficult to approach, however I’m very proud to have managed a 100% success rate in catching these elusive birds. All have survived. This latest darter had been observed standing for a whole day on the foreshore of a local canal, shaking its head, trying to remove the mesh. It had no hope. I was called late in the afternoon and upon arrival was told the bird had just disappeared (welcome to wild life rescue!!) A search of the immediate area failed to locate it, however darters are territorial and I knew it would be somewhere in the vicinity. I circled the canal checking all nooks and inlets and in a very short time located the bird half a k from the original site. It was standing on a pontoon attached to the shore by a 6m long bridge. Attempting to approach and to net a diving bird perched only inches above the water on the edge of a pontoon is guaranteed to fail. The creature will dive underwater before you get within 10 metres. But this bird was weary and traumatised and I had a feeling there might be a chance. The use of a snare or net gun was simply not possible in the circumstances. I stepped onto the bridge with my long handled net and waited. The bird began to ‘click’ loudly – the darter’s warning signal. Rather than diving into the water the bird hesitated and instead began to pace back and forth along the edge of the pontoon. I stood completely still. Then it made a fatal mistake, or in this case its most fortuitous decision. It turned and attempted to run 6m across the pontoon into the wind to assist in taking-off. They’re clumsy, slow runners on land and so I let him get half way across and at the point of no return I charged down the bridge and with maximum reach was able to slip a net over his head within inches of his watery goal. It only took a few minutes to cut the netting from his beak. He was released immediately which saw him disappear instantly underwater to travel up to half a kilometre on the one breath. It was a quick rescue and a very happy result, especially because the last darter, with the same injury, took me almost 3 full days to capture.
Thank you again for supporting my wildlife rescue service. These three stories from September, and 28 other stories like them, would not have been possible without your kind help.