The Bruny Island Bird Festival took place of the weekend of October 19-22 , showcasing what Bruny Islanders describe as the “birdwatching capital of Tasmania”.
This might sound like a bit of an exaggeration but the four festivals so far since the event’s inception in 2010 have certainly attracted large numbers of both mainland and international birdwatchers.
And in the past two years Bruny birding “hotspot” status has been further enhanced by the twin Bruny islands also being named by BirdLife Australia as one of Australia’s most important birds and biodiversity areas. All of Tasmania’s 12 endemic species can be spotted on Bruny, and these include one of the world’s rarest birds, the forty-spotted pardalote. Another critically-endangered bird, the swift parrot, also breeds in Bruny’s blue gum forests before migrating to the mainland at the end of summer.
The festival mixes a program of workshops, bird and literary talks and outings, along with social events which this year include a bird quiz and a speech by environmental campaigner Bob Brown, who will deliver the Louise Crossley memorial lecture, in memory of a stalwart of the Bruny Island Environmental Network (BIEN), who died three years ago.
The bird festival plugs into a greater awareness of Tasmania’s birds and their uniqueness on an international scale. That explains why more and more foreign wildlife tourists are visiting the state. As far as birds go, there are few states in Australia with so many exclusive species. The state’s list of significant birds is only surpassed by the much larger Queensland and Western Australian states. New South Wales has only one endemic species and Victoria has none.
The Bruny Bird Festival is not only serving to showcase the island’s birds but to celebrate the achievements of the local residents in protecting birds and the environments they live in.
BIEN had been instrumental in a program to construct and install nest boxes for both swift parrots and forty-spotted pardalotes. The sponsored nest boxes, built by members of the Bruny Men’s Shed, can be seen in the blue and white gums across the islands and are a potent reminder that the people of Bruny mean business when it comes to protecting the islands’ other residents.
The organisation also had input into BirdLife Tasmania’s research and recommendations for mitigation measures to protect penguins when the road linking the north and south Bruny Islands was sealed recently – tunnels were provided for the penguins to cross in safety – and members are now working with the wider community and Kingborough Council to rid the twin islands of feral cats.
BIEN hopes the festival will help spur increasing numbers of visitors from the United States and Europe.
A leading Australian bird tour operator based on the island, Tonia Cochran, says that birdwatching is huge in a number of overseas countries such as the US and the United Kingdom with as many as one in four people in the US taking an interest in wild birds.
BIEN aims though to remain focused on conservation, science, creativity and community rather than solely economic benefit.