Bringing woodland birds back to the Mount Lofty Ranges

Years of habi­tat loss and changes in the land­scape saw native wood­land bird pop­u­la­tions severe­ly drop through­out the Mount Lofty Ranges.

The species most at risk of extinc­tion in the region include the beau­ti­ful fire­tail, chest­nut-rumped heath­wren, dia­mond fire­tail, Bass­ian thrush and the south­ern emu-wren.

The recov­ery of these wood­land bird pop­u­la­tions requires coor­di­nat­ed and col­lab­o­ra­tive action. 

What’s being done?

A $1 mil­lion restora­tion project is cur­rent­ly under­way which will see impor­tant heath­land and grassy wood­land veg­e­ta­tion restored to sup­port the recov­ery of these threat­ened bird species. 

It’s an impor­tant project being deliv­ered by the Hills and Fleurieu Land­scape Board in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment for Envi­ron­ment and Water (DEW) and the Mount Lofty Ranges Bird Recov­ery Alliance.

Half of the fund­ing will go to heath­land restora­tion on the Fleurieu Penin­su­la, while the rest is for grassy wood­land restora­tion in the east­ern Mount Lofty Ranges. 

A mon­i­tor­ing pro­gram will also be set up to bet­ter under­stand the pop­u­la­tion sta­tus of the threat­ened species. 

The heath­land restora­tion in cleared areas of Deep Creek Nation­al Park will tar­get the endan­gered beau­ti­ful fire­tail, how­ev­er a range of oth­er species includ­ing the south­ern emu-wren are like­ly to also benefit. 

The beau­ti­ful firetail

The beau­ti­ful fire­tail is one of the most threat­ened res­i­dent birds in the region and was recent­ly list­ed as endan­gered under the Envi­ron­ment Pro­tec­tion and Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­ser­va­tion Act 1999. Sur­veys over the past decade have revealed that Deep Creek Nation­al Park and sur­rounds are the last remain­ing strong­hold for the species. 

A spe­cif­ic shrub­by heath will be rein­stat­ed that the fire­tails require. The fire­tails are known to vis­it areas of the park and already make use of reveg­e­ta­tion estab­lished in pre­vi­ous years. 

Address­ing the decline

The Mount Lofty Ranges is an area of gen­uine eco­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance and is con­sid­ered a bio­di­ver­si­ty hotspot.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, how­ev­er, the major­i­ty of res­i­dent bush bird species in the Mount Lofty Ranges have been in decline for many years. 

This decline can be linked to a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors includ­ing habi­tat loss, changes to fire regimes, and the impacts of native and fer­al graz­ing ani­mals on the remain­ing native vegetation. 

The effects of cli­mate change are also expect­ed to exac­er­bate these threats.