Download Bringing Back Birds: Grey

FACT SHEET 2
The Murrumbidgee CMA together with the Grain & Graze project helps you
maximise profitability and Natural Resource Management on your farm.
Birds are a vital component in helping you
to maximise Natural Resource
Management (NRM) on your farm. Birds
are known as ‘indicator species’, and a
large variety of birds present on your farm
can indicate a high diversity of trees,
shrubs, mammals, reptiles, frogs and
invertebrates.
Birds provide many on-farm benefits
ranging from agricultural insect pest
control to maintaining tree health, which is
intimately linked with NRM.
Grey-crowned Babbler (Pomatostomus
temporalis temporalis)
Status: Vulnerable in NSW.
Protected throughout Australia.
Description: The Grey-crowned Babbler
reaches up to 30 cm long and is the largest
of the four Australian babblers. It has a
distinctive curved bill, with a broad white
eyebrow and a pale grey crown-strip. A
dark grey-brown band extends from the
bill through the eye, separating the brow
and pale throat to give it a ‘masked’
appearance. It has dark greyish-brown
back and top of wings, with a paler brown
underbelly. During flight it is quite
distinctive, showing white tips to the tail
feathers. Young babblers have dark brown
eyes, which turn yellow by about three
years of age.
Call: ‘ya-hoo’ (female call ‘ya’ male
response ‘hoo’)
Grey-crowned Babbler. Photo: Geoffrey
Dabb, Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Feeding: Grey-crowned Babblers forage in groups of two to
fifteen amongst leaf litter, fallen trees and the bark of shrubs and
trees. Their diet consists almost entirely of invertebrates (ants,
spiders, beetles, etc) and occasionally seeds.
Breeding: Grey-crowned Babblers live and breed in co-operative
territorial groups of two to fifteen. A group usually has a
dominant breeding pair with several non-breeding birds. Two
types of nests are built: roost nests, which are used by the whole
group and brood-nests, used by the breeding females. Old nests
are often renovated and re-used from year to year. The brooding
female (occasionally more than one) is fed by the other group
members and they all help to feed the nestlings. Two broods
usually raised per breeding season (July — February).
Habitat: In the Murrumbidgee Catchment Grey-crowned
Babblers inhabit open Box-Gum Woodlands on the slopes and
Box-Cypress Pine and open Box Woodlands on alluvial plains.
Their territory ranges from 1 to 50 Ha
Did you Know?
(commonly around 10 Ha) and are
The old nests of
defended vigorously.
Grey-crowned
Babblers are used
by other birds.
FACT SHEET 2
Threats to Grey-crowned Babblers:
• Clearing of woodland remnant
vegetation
• Heavy grazing and removal of fallen
timber within woodland remnants
• Nest predation by Ravens and
Butcherbirds can be a problem in
some areas, especially where
populations are small and
fragmented
Benefits of Grey-crowned Babblers for your
farm:
• They act as biological pest control for insects
• Aid in maintenance of tree health, by feeding on
insects under bark and in tree crevices
• Increasing Grey-crowned Babbler habitat
• increases habitat for other beneficial fauna
species
• Improves on-farm aesthetics
• A large Grey-crown Babbler population
indicates a healthy stand of native vegetation
Known Grey-crowned Babbler habitat — Black Box Open
Woodland, near Leeton, NSW. (Photo: S. de Lange)
How can you help to encourage these
birds on your farm?
• Retain existing woodland vegetation on
your farm
• Don’t remove fallen timber from
woodland areas
• Fence off woodland areas and encourage
regeneration of the habitat
• Increase the size of woodland areas to at
least 10 Ha or larger by planting locally
native plant species
• Establish unimproved pasture around
woodland areas to act as buffer zones
How the Murrumbidgee CMA can
assist you?
• Incentives for protecting and
enhancing native remnant vegetation
• Incentives for revegetating areas
with local native species
• Incentives for establishing wildlife
corridors
• Providing alternate stock watering
points where wetlands and riparian
areas have been fenced off
(conditions apply)
For further information contact:
Catchment Officer (Grain & Graze)
Murrumbidgee CMA Leeton office
Ph: (02) 6953 0766
Mob: 0428 265 040
E-mail: [email protected]
Catchment Officer (Grain & Graze)
Murrumbidgee CMA Henty office
Ph: (02) 6929 3555
Mob: 0427 012 862
E-mail: [email protected]
Grain and Graze Murrumbidgee partners:
References:
Barrett, G. (2000). Birds on
Farms: Ecological management for agricultural sustainability. Supplement to Wingspan, vol. 10, no.4, December
2000.
Birds in Backyards. Website:
http://birdsinbackyards.net/
finder/display.cfm?id=168
Threatened Species: species,
populations and ecological
communities of NSW. Website: http://
www.threatenedspecies.enviro
nment.nsw.gov.au/tsprofile/
profile.aspx?id=10660