11 Sydney Bird Club
About this episode
Birdwatching in Sydney can be part science, part art and part good excuse for a walk. Amy Ranck and Stephanie Chambers from Sydney Bird Club share favourite birding places, community and the Channel-billed Cuckoo.
Episode illustration: Channel-billed Cuckoo
Resources
Meet the guest
Sydney Bird Club was founded by Stephanie Chambers and Amy Ranck to help people discover the magical world of Australian birds. With a Sydney-centric focus, they take casual bird-watchers through the steps to become full blown twitchers, with plenty of stops along the way for a pint. Why look at the world any other way than through a pair of binoculars?
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Kirsty: This podcast was recorded on Bunurong Boonwurrung Country. I pay my respect to Elders past and present. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been stewards of the land, sea and sky for over 60,000 years. I would to thank them for their continued contribution to science, conservation and education.
Kirsty: Welcome to Weekend Birder. I'm Kirsty Costa, and it is my honor to share people's stories and advice about birdwatching. In this episode, we are heading to Dharawal Country in Sydney, to meet Stephanie Chambers and Amy Ranck. Here is how Amy got into birding.
Amy: I've always loved animals but I never really took the time to really look at every bird I saw. And I moved to New York in my early twenties, and especially there, I literally thought there was pigeons. I didn't even look twice, you know. And then randomly you'd see a cardinal or something that, which is so magical and beautiful. But I didn't really ever see something that I didn't know. Stephanie really opened that door for me, and their passion is so contagious and birdwatching is contagious. Once you start noticing it, it becomes something that you can can't stop. So yeah, I blame Stephanie!
Stephanie: Many years ago I was at a holiday party and my great Aunt Millie, who was classic New York character, someone who lived in the same apartment for 50 years. She was telling me a story about these wild green parrots that lived at Green-Wood Cemetery, which is a large, very famous cemetery in Brooklyn. And I did not believe her, but at the time I lived close to the cemetery. So I brought a friend, headed to the cemetery and had a look. And there sure enough, there were green parrots in Brooklyn. It happened to be Winter. And I felt something in my brain exploded and I was hooked ever since. And it's actually a really interesting story about the parrot. So of course, my Aunt Millie, who was a very dramatic New Yorker, told me this story about how someone from the Mafia was breaking into a crate at JFK. When they opened the crate, several green parrots flew out. Of course, I thought the whole thing was made up. But actually that's the story from the 1960s. And it's parrots from Argentina who were shipped to the US to JFK to be sold as exotic pets, wound up living at Green-Wood Cemetery. So from that point on, I had a pair of binoculars at the time but I went out and bought proper camera and then fell. I'm sure everyone can can relate, but once you fall down that rabbit hole, I mean, there's no going back, is there?
Kirsty: Stephanie and Amy founded the Sydney Bird Club in 2016. They developed a website that has accessible information for Sydneysiders and Sydney visitors. They also organise fun and inclusive group birdwatching walks. One of their favourite places to go birdwatching is Centennial Park.
Amy: Well, I think especially moving back to Australia, none of my friends, they thought it was cute what we did on the side but they weren't really ever going to join us to go birdwatching - get up at five in the morning and drive somewhere and birdwatch/ And I felt we wanted to make it a little more fun for people. So first off, we were trying to really have our friends go birdwatching with us, and then it snowballed there to like, we started calling it Sydney Bird Club and then we would call it birds and beers. And I feel from there on it grew because we kept meeting more people who wanted to join our walks. It was Facebook event. That's literally what it was at first and it was an open Facebook event and then people started joining it.
Stephanie: So I didn't know anyone in Australia and we moved from New York to Australia and so the whole first couple of months were trying to get Amy's friends to become birders. And so we came up with the motto 'Birds and beers', because we would say, "Oh, don't worry, let's go out, you'll be out in nature. Don't worry, it will be 90% beers and 10% birds". And then of course we would get there, we would make them birdwatch. So it was 90% birds and 10% beers! But I think we've had a few successful converts, don't you?
Amy: I definitely think so. And then that's why it's called Sydney Bird Club. Because we want it to be birding, to be accessible for people like my friends, where it's really straightforward. You don't have to know all the birds. It's about finding nice local places and that we give you tips of where to walk. I feel you would know this, but you get down rabbit holes of going people's threads of where they go birding, and you don't sometimes get the exact area, but we try to make it something that you could pick up on a weekend and not have to plan yourself so much we've done it all for you. We even tell you where the bathrooms are, we're trying to make it more accessible and a really easy platform.
Stephanie: Just a very low barrier to entry. On the website, we've got a few self-guided walks. I can hop on the website, I can go out like Amy said. I know where the bathrooms are. I know where I can get good a cup of coffee or a pint afterwards. So I'm a fine artist and Amy's a graphic designer. The skills that we have, we wanted to use those to share our joy.
Amy: Yeah, it's really sharing our passion and making it so accessible for everybody because I know I need that on a website. That's pretty much what we created is something that we wanted.
Stephanie: So Sydney is blessed with so many incredible spaces within the city. One of our favourite places to go is Sydney Park, which is close to our house. And it's an incredible park. It's been totally refurbished and made into wetlands and the variety of birds there is really impressive for what you would think of in an urban space. So I would say for me that's one of my favourite places to go. When the summer comes, it's one of our favorite places to go and see the Latham's Snipe which comes down from Japan.
Amy: We're so lucky where we live. We got the Cook's River close by but Sydney Park is so special. There's nothing better when a visitor comes by the Yellow-tail (Cockatoos) in Centennial Park, I'm that crazy person running around that that whole gardens there. I feel like you're going to see me out every year. It surprises me. I don't know why. I'll still have so much joy every time I'm going there.
Stephanie: Yeah, Centennial Park's amazing. There's a huge variety of bird life there and it's full of surprises. Even if you've gone and you see the same birds each time. Like, for example, the last time we went we made a stop to visit the Powerful Owl. We look up and we can't believe it has half of a Flying Fox hanging right out. And we were like, "Wow, we haven't seen that before. We've seen possums. We haven't seen that before!"
Amy: Yeah, it was pretty gruesome.
Kirsty: People often contact Stephanie and Amy to get advice about identifying birds. And there are two birds that everyone asks about at the start of every Sydney summer.
Stephanie: It's funny because we get these... they're almost works of art. Because it's like Bigfoot sighting, right? Someone sees something incredible, they don't know what it is. They rush to get their camera, which is usually their phone, and they take this blurry photo and then they email us. And in the email, I think, Amy, you were describing how people often list the description.
Amy: Well, sometimes it sounds it's prehistoric or it's never been seen before, that they'll say it was mixed dinosaur with pigeon and those details. It can be difficult to sometimes figure it out.
Stephanie: So at the start of each summer, it's clockwork. We get a flurry of emails in our inbox with these blurry photos and descriptions like, "It had the head of a pterodactyl and the body of a goose. And it was making a sound I've never heard before!" And we know from experience that it's always the Channel-billed Cuckoo. And for us it's actually become this really very sweet time of year because it's the start of summer for us. When those emails start pouring in before we open the attachment, we make a little bet, "Do you think it's cuckoo? Do you think it's a cuckoo?"
Amy: And the beak always gets it.
Stephanie: Spoiler alert, it's always the Channel-billed Cuckoo for some reason and the White-faced Heron people email us about too.
Amy: Yes! The White-faced Heron stays at number two for sure.
Stephanie: "Dinosaur legs". So the Channel-billed Cuckoo, the photos that we usually get you can't tell what the bird is, but it's often by what people describe as the behaviour or the size of the bird or the call of the bird. And so Channel-billed Cuckoos are fascinating birds. They live in New Guinea and they come to Australia to breed. So that starts around August through October and then they go back north in February. But not to describe a prehistoric animal, but the sounds that they make... if you were to imagine what you think a pterodactyl would sound like, that's what the Channel-billed Cuckoo sounds like. It's so large, it's the largest cuckoo in the world. Ot's got a very pale grey body, long tail feathers with black and white stripes, a very big bill and this incredibly bright red eye lore. And so you see it, and you're really startled because you're like, "I've never seen that before. There's this massive bird making very loud sounds. What is it? Where did it come from?!"
Amy: Oh, if you didn't get from the description, it's quite evil of a bird.
Stephanie: And they're total opportunists. They outsource the parenting. So they're cuckoos, they're brood parasites. And what that means is that they lay their eggs in other birds nests. And for the Channel-billed Cuckoos those other birds are typically in the crow family - Pied Currawong is usually main victim, plus magpies or others in the crow family. But yeah, it's pretty wild because then what happens is these birds are so massive. When the eggs hatch, you have this enormous chick. And it's much larger than one could expect. So some chicks in the cuckoo family might kill the other hatchlings. But what the Channel-billed Cuckoo chick does is outeats its competition in the nest. So it's really an aggressive eater. To bring it back to the mafia again, I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly what it's called but it's 'mafia theory' or something. There's a theory that the Pied Currawong knows the Channel-billed Cuckoo chick is not its offspring, but it's terrified of the Channel-billed Cuckoo because they are so large. They're yet incredible birds that people often dislike very strongly and I think you could argue for good reasons.
Kirsty: That is a truly creepy call from an awesome bird. Check out the ABC's 'What the Duck' podcast to find out more about the hidden world of cuckoo nest stealing. It is eye opening and a link is in the notes of this episode. Stephanie and Amy also connect to the birds around them through their art practice and the work that they do through their business out of island. Stephanie says that birds have long played an important role in the history of art.
Stephanie: I went to art school and I love art history. And if you look back into different paintings and sculptures throughout the centuries, what's really fascinating is that the story of birds is often interwoven. And it's interesting because it often tells a story that might not be so obvious. So, for example, oil paintings in Europe that have cassowaries in them. How did someone paint a cassowary?! Was it from a specimen that was brought overseas or was it from a cassowary that brought overseas and put in someone's aviary? I personally love the role that ibis have played in ancient Egypt. I find their their story arc is interesting, how they've gone from literal gods to what people would call "bin chickens". But yet in ancient Egypt there was a god with the head of an ibis, and so the actual bird was considered so sacred that it was often mummified and put into tombs. And so it was very well revered. And the funny thing about it is why the ancient Egyptians loved ibis so much is actually because they ate garbage on the banks of the Nile (River). They would eat garbage and they would eat refuse so they were essentially cleaning the water. They had such an important role to play... flash forward, now people are like, "Oh, another ibis, hanging out of a garbage bin". But oh how the mighty have fallen, I suppose.
Amy: We have our other business, Outer Island, and that's really truly our love for animals and bringing the magic of Australia and really celebrating it in our own way. And when we get inspired for the art that we create, it's all to do with our bushwals and going birding. So when we do those walks we always take a journal with us, we always draw what we see and we make colour notes. You don't want to see my drawings because they're not as good as Stephanie's but we try to capture that feeling even to texture into a rock where a bird might have been sitting to how the dapple of light with a bird. And it's always fascinating. A journal for me lets me actually see more when I go birdwatching, because sometimes you can get trapped with your phone or your camera and your binoculars. It lets me really breathe in that whole scenery because that's also what's so magical about birding is where you are. You actually are lost in nature at that moment, which I find really magical. I'm not a professional. I can't say I'll ever be an expert with birding. I love it. I love birds so much! I'll never be that person that will be able to identify and know the name straight away. But I will tell you the details of it, "That bird looks glamorous. That bird had hair. That bird had legs". I'll give you those details. That's me, right? Sometimes my notepad ends up on the ground because I'd rather be looking in my binoculars. But yeah, it's those little fleeting moments that are quite, quite special in those times.
Stephanie: It's so easy to be inspired by nature. And you're right, those those moments are so fleeting. And so we try to jot them down while they're still fresh. But I just might mention that when we do go bushwalking and birding, we always practice what we're doing in an ethical way. And so even though we are amongst the bush, we're being very careful not to trample on anything. We follow campsite rules - leave it as you found it. We don't use flash, we don't we don't feed birds, we don't use fishing calls. But yeah, we are so inspired! And I think it's obviously just not us. I mean, the entire history of art, people have been inspired by birds and it's something about birds. It's it it captures something that you, you can't quite express.
Kirsty: In upcoming Weekend Birder episodes, you will meet artists, illustrators and riders who combine their love of birdwatching with their love of art. I can't wait to introduce you. Stephanie and Amy spent a lot of time supporting beginner and intermediate birders with honing their skills. Here is some advice they'd to share with you.
Stephanie: The piece of advice that I'd love to share is advice that I got when I first came to Australia six years ago. And I used to work at the Botanic Gardens in Sydney and I was talking to a volunteer there and she's an absolute legend. She's been birding for 60 years. She's seen almost everything. She's been almost everywhere. And I remember I was telling her, "Anne, I really want to see a bird. I really want to see a lyrebird". And she looked me dead in the eyes. She said, "Steph, I need to tell you something. Some birds - I can tell you where to find them. You can go out, you can see the bird and check it off your list. And some birds are just luck. And a lyrebird is luck". And I loved it. I always think of it because it's so true. Sometimes when you go out, you go out for something specific. You don't see it. You can feel frustrated. Birds are mobile, they fly away. And so my advice is to enjoy it.
Amy: Yeah, it's all about having fun. You're going to go outside and sometimes you actually might not see anything. Really, you maybe get a magpie and you're like, "What the hell?". Just remember, it's all about being outside and enjoying yourselves. I try to always not get hard on myself like the number of times I go to myself, "I'm going to see an emu wren. I'm going to see an Emu Wren today. It says it's here. I'm going to see it!". I've never seen it and I might never see it. And you could try me 20 years later and I most probably still haven't seen it but I will still have hope. But yeah, it's really about having fun. And you don't have to know every name. You don't even have to know what you're seeing but just enjoy it and know that is it's so incredible that you got to see that bird that day.
Kirsty: On their website sydneybirder.com, you will find a list of walks in the Sydney area and all are free to join. If you're visiting Sydney or can't make the organised walks, check out a list of self-guided walks which are filled with ideas of where to go and what to do. And the good news is that there are clubs like the Sydney Bird Club across Australia.
Amy: Don't be afraid to join any organisation that's nearby. There's so many great people who want to share birding with you. Just do a little research and you'll find somebody who will want to take you on that journey. I really, truly believe that.
Kirsty: Well said Amy! How great is it listening to awesome people who have a passion for birdwatching? I'm so grateful to Stephanie and Amy and other birdwatchers around Australia whow are volunteering their time to bring people together in nature. The audio of the Channel-billed Cuckoo call was shared by Marc Anderson on xeno-canto. Check out the links in the episode notes or on the Weekend Birder website to discover more about this interesting bird and where to go birdwatching in Sydney.
