There’s no hiding place from the thugs and standover men of the Melbourne underworld. Not thugs as such, but bogans. And for underworld, read understorey, the “hood” of the bullying noisy miners.
The anti-social activities of the miners are known in Hobart, too, but according to the Age newspaper in Melbourne these muggers have taken over the whole metropolitan area of the city. Where you get miners, there is an absence of smaller more colourful bird species.
In Melbourne recently, I saw first-hand how the miners are increasingly dominating the city’s green and open spaces. Visiting the Victorian state capital I had gone in search of two species of robin not found in Tasmania, the rose and yellow robins, after I had been told they inhabited a stretch of parkland near where I was staying, the Merri Creek reserve in the northern suburb of Brunswick.
From the outset, the miners made their presence known and I thought for a moment I was back in the dry woodland of the Queens Domain, where in Hobart the miners rule the roost. And I didn’t get to see the mainland robins.
Miners are curious birds. Although members of the honeyeater family, they appear and behave more like introduced European starlings.
Along with burying their heads in pollen and nectar-laden flowers, the miners are also adept at prising out grubs from the ground. That’s very much starling behaviour and that of another introduced starling family member found in mainland cities, the Indian hill myna.
Such is the worry about the declining diversity of birds in Melbourne, La Trobe University is undertaking a study of its causes.
Dr Jacinta Humphrey of the university’s Research Centre for Future Landscapes and her team have surveyed 300 sites across Melbourne. Although 68 species were identified in total across various habitats, a majority of sites had five species or fewer.
Although the hill myna has been blamed for bird decline in other surveys, this particular project established that the native miner is just as harmful; like the myna, it pushes out smaller birds from roosting, nesting and feeding areas.
Dr Humphrey said that Melbourne’s manicured public parks and streetscapes favoured the noisy miner, which in pre-European times was confined to the margins of woodlands. Without wooded areas with dense understorey protective shrubs, robins and other small birds do not have a chance of survival.
In Hobart, the miners pose less of a problem because there is more untamed habitat within the city’s boundaries.
The study is now concentrating on how Melbourne’s landscape can be adapted to suit the smaller birds. One way will be to create areas that grow wild with dense, spiky bushes where the small, less aggressive species can shelter. Bringing birds back to the cities is something we can all do in our own gardens.