Click here to see the available Drouin Bird Surveys
Birds can be good bioindicators: they can help measure of the health of an ecosystem. Bird surveys can help to assess the success or otherwise of management practices. Removing, adding or changing vegetation will invariably result in a change of the number or variety of birds to the area.
Some birds on Drouin’s wetlands
Since 2018, the Friends of Drouin’s Trees has conducted two bird surveys each year, in spring and autumn. The surveys are performed at a number of sites in and around Drouin. The aim is, over time, to provide some evidence- based data of the health of the natural environment of urban Drouin.
Members of the friends, armed with binoculars and field guides, spend about 1 hour at each site. Each survey is repeated about one week later and the records amalgamated. Results are uploaded to The Victorian Biodiversity Atlas at the DELWP website. In this way, ecologists, researchers, planners, developers and others, have a record of the bird species in the town.
Some highlight sightings might include: Golden Whistlers at every survey beside the freeway near the Drouin golf course, rare Freckled Ducks on the ponds at the Drouin Waste Water plant, 40+ species often recorded at several sites, bushland species like the Eastern Yellow Robin and Brown and Striated Thornbills being regularly found at several sites..
Some of Drouin’s ‘bush’ birds.
If you see an interesting bird in Drouin or would like to join in a survey, please email the secretary of the Friends of Drouin’s Trees at friendsofdrouinstrees@gmail.com
