Phone 4325 7369 Fax 4325 7362 Email us

2005 (c) Peninsula Community Access Newspaper Inc

 

Bush stone-curlew recorded

 

Gosford Council has recorded at least one bush stone-curlew in the vicinity of the Catholic land on the corner of Veron Road and Hillview St in Woy Woy.

The bird is listed as endangered under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act.

The annual survey is conducted as part of Council's attempt to prevent the local and regional extinction of this species.

The bush stone-curlew was recorded in the Everglades Golf Course, across the road from the Catholic land, now approved for development of a retirement village.

Prior to this survey, there have been regular recordings of these birds in this vicinity for the last five months, according to Ms Shirley Hotchkiss, convenor of Umina P&C Bushcare.

Local residents, staff and volunteers at the Umina Campus of Brisbane Water Secondary College have seen and heard this bird on a regular basis since December.

Ms Hotchkiss said: "I saw the bird last December, and a friend saw it a couple of weeks later in the College grounds.

"Then the P&C President told me at the February meeting that he and college staff had seen it around the College most mornings.

"He said it spent a lot of time looking at itself in one of the windows, and the cleaners were complaining that it kept soiling their clean step.

"He said one of the cleaners at the building opposite the Catholic site often heard it down that way early in the morning.

"One day, they thought it was dead because it dropped to the ground when they approached it, but then it jumped up and flew about 10 metres in the air.

"They call him Stony."

Ms Hotchkiss said she lived near the College and heard the bush stone-curlew often at night, including the previous Saturday.

"It has a wailing call, and on Saturday it was coming from the western boundary of the College, opposite the Catholic site."

Ms Hotchkiss said this bird roosts during the day in a sheltered area, and comes out at night to forage and mate.

"Its presence was yet another reason why the Council should have rejected the application to destroy the Catholic site's rare bushland."

Media release, May 7 Shirley Hotchkiss