Better Times Ahead?

Steady on there. It's not all doom and gloom along the poor polluted waterway that is The Cooks River (though the sacks of plastic litter we gather on clean up days can be disheartening). There are plenty of remediation projects happening. Everything from raingardens in local streets to full scale restoration of native riparian vegetation along the river banks. Local councils, volunteer groups and even Sydney Water have taken responsibility for a variety of projects; each of which has the aim of restoring the river to something approaching its former health.

The Cooks River catchment encompasses some of the most densely populated urban areas in Australia. Stormwater run off, from paved surfaces in the catchment, pollutes the river with chemicals and rubbish from the streets. In an attempt to prevent the worst of this, local councils have installed litter booms to catch the plastic bottles, plastic bags, polystyrene, takeaway cups and containers, and other pieces of rubbish washed into the river through drains. Volunteer groups such as the Mudcrabs spend many weekends during the year fishing yet more rubbish out of the water, and collecting plastic trapped in the mangroves. Councils are also building raingardens to slow the stormwater down and filter out oil, chemicals, sediments and even dog excrement from the roads, pavements and driveways before it reaches the river.

Litter boom on The Cooks River

The Cooks River is twenty-three kilometres long, and is fed by several smaller creeks. In the upper reaches, the river and these creeks are little more than concrete culverts and stormwater channels. These channels were constructed almost eighty years ago on what was then the understanding that they would help to prevent flooding. In the last decade, the concrete walls have degraded to the point where they need replacement, and Sydney Water, in cooperation with the relevant council and local communities, has begun to replace the concrete with sandstone and native plants to naturalise the river banks.

On this side of the bridge, The Cooks River is little more than a stormwater channel

On this side of the bridge, the river banks are being naturalised

The naturalised banks should help in the struggle to restore the rivers health, should promote biodiversity, and should actually be more effective in preventing flooding.

A naturalised section

Transition between a naturalised section and the 1940s concrete walls

Sydney Water have also installed educative signs in passive recreation spots, to help the local community to understand the rationale behind, and the process undertaken for, bank naturalisation.

Interpretive sign at the site of one of the naturalisation projects

My Patch

Not exactly a pristine waterway: The Cooks River at Tempe

And in its upper reaches, little more than a stormwater ditch

My local birding patch? Well, that's up and down The Cooks River. Well worth a look for all sorts of birds. Don't bother to pack your swimsuit though. Nobody swims in this river. Not anymore. Although early last century they did. You can even find old photographs of lifesavers patrolling the riverbanks. Since then, industrial waste, including heavy metals, has accumulated in the river bed, and sewerage overflow pipes have often contaminated the water with faecal coliforms. Add to that the tons of rubbish, especially plastics, that are washed into the river through stormwater drains. So you don't want to take a dip here. Not even a quick one. Some people panic if they get so much as a splash from the water. But birdos are made of stronger stuff than that, and we regularly get into the mud between the mangroves to gawp at a Striated Heron or a Royal Spoonbill.

I shake my head when I see people fishing along the river though.

Just eat the chips

Why Counting Cormorants?

Why Counting Cormorants?

Because I'm a birdo, aren't I? And that's what we do, don't we? We count those feathered things. Especially the ones we haven't seen on our patch before. Most especially the ones we've never seen anywhere before. Then we get excited. Very excited.

I'd seen Little Black Cormorants before. I'd seen them up and down The Cooks River before. But a Cormorant conga line on a rubbish boom? I hadn't seen that before. So I got excited. And then I counted them. And there were thirty-three. Easy to remember. It's the speed of an LP record (forget the third). So I could walk back home thinking Closer or Before And After Science or The Stone Roses or.......
Easy. See?

Think: Beard Of Stars

One Egret. One Ibis. Still counting.

International Dawn Chorus Day

It's the First of May. It's May Day. It's International Dawn Chorus Day. Around the world people are broadcasting the sounds of daybreak from overnight soundcamps. They are setting up their microphones, and streaming birdsong and more as the light comes. These events are linked through Reveil, a 24 hour series of live events, organised from Soundtent (http://www.soundtent.org/).

I'm ready to broadcast too. I'm streaming the sounds of daybreak from Tempe Ponds using the Mixlr app (above) on my smartphone. It's not so much a sound tent I've got, more of a sound anorak, as I hold my waterproof over my phone. Apart from the sound of the falling rain, it's so quiet around the ponds that you can easily hear the hum of early traffic on the Princes Highway. Not the sounds I'd intended to share with the rest of the world. Slowly I begin to hear the wok wok of Striped Marsh Frogs against the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. Surely a bird or two will pipe up soon. You can always bet on the Noisy Miners to make a racket in the mornings. 

Well, you'd lose your bet. Distant traffic, frogs, raindrops, thunder, sirens. And now a petulant grumble, rising to a roar of fury. It's a plane taking off from the nearby international airport. At last, I can hear the occasional startled protest of a Dusky Moorhen. Now back to the cars and buses away over there somewhere. What I wouldn't give to hear (and stream) the carolling of even one lonely Australian Magpie. I'd settle for a Red Wattlebird clearing its throat. What do I get? Another aircraft taking off.

At least there are no barking dogs as yet. Wait! Was that a Superb Fairy-wren? Gone. There - a Eurasian Coot. Stopped. The light is coming quickly now. It's a grey day, but I watch the rain on the ponds anyway. An Australasian Grebe is standing on a piece of polystyrene in the middle of a pond, like a castaway on a floating island or a surfer on a stand-up paddleboard. I'm twenty minutes into the broadcast. Not a lot going on audio wise. 

It's now forty-five minutes since I began. I'm sure the whole wide world has heard enough by now to realise that there is not likely to be much of a dawn chorus from Tempe Ponds today. The sun is well and truly up, though there's little evidence of that through the heavy black clouds. Time to stop the broadcast. And wander home forlorn in the soaking rain. 

Of course. Here come the Rainbow Lorikeets, screaming their way through the canopy of the gum trees beyond the ponds. And one lone Pied Currawong arrives in time to mock me.