Osprey fishing this morning, Valla Beach, Friday 30 Oct

Great photos by my mate Lew Witten.

I feel so lucky living here. Ospreys and Brahminy Kites can be seen every day and Sea Eagles are quite common. Then there’s the Pacific Bazas and Whistling Kites. A Jabiru (now designated as Black-necked Storks) flew over us this morning as well.

We have just taken part in the Birds in Backyards survey – over a million birds seen. The State of Australia’s Birds: Headline Trends for Terrestrial Birds report released 15 July 2015 had some good news. Rainforest birds that we see here like the Australian Logrunner, Bassian Thrush, and Noisy Pitta showed significant overall increases. But the bad outweighed the good. Surprisingly, common Australian birds like Magpies, kookaburras and willie wagtails are ‘starting to disappear’. Birds of prey also showed troubling levels of declines along with Southern Boobook and Tawny Frogmouths.

To download a copy of the report, go to http://birdlife.org.au/state-of-birds/