louisb's Identifications

I see and/or hear hardly any wrens in this location now (mid-2022): the Tidy Uppers got to work stripping away understorey in the Wheller Wetlands on the south side of the path, several times; THEN every shred of wren habitat - midlevel shrub layer, and groundcovers, and coarse woody debris, vine thickets, etc, were all swept away at once, in the space of a few days, from a small area of pinewoods... and from that day to this, the area under and around the pine trees, that used to be full of fairywrens, is.. dead silent. NO equivalent native cover has been established in this location yet - two years later. There is an area some hundreds of metres away across the creek to the northwest that was planted up with much fanfare; but... the net area of shelter and forage has, in reality, been reduced, not expanded. An area that wrens obviously preferred and in which they were established and breeding, was totally annihilated; long before an 'alternative' area.. quite some way away - had reached wren-suitable density. Two to three years after the clearing took place, I am still observing a catastrophic diminution in numbers and variety of small woodland birds in the area of Downfall Creek corridor immediately west and upstream from Gympie Road bridge. Further upstream there used to be at least three different wren colonies that have totally disappeared, in the wake of 'edge thinning' and 'clearing'.

In a pocket of weedy scrub on the creek bank within centre section of 7th Brigade park. I understand this entire area is the next section of Downfall Creek scheduled to be stripped bare and bulldozed and re-engineered, sometime soon... yet it is one of the small woodland bird hotspots within 7th Brigade park - there are only three or four such 'biodiversity pockets' left.