Birds fall out of the skies - in Esperance, W.A.

Brush Wattlebird
You might recall that I wrote two stories last week about the super storm which buffetted West Australia last week.

Well, today Miss Eagle sent me a link to this story from news.com.au. Naturally I am always wary of Rupert's media network, but occasionally they do get good stories.

This story falls into the "incredible - but credible" category. (Ah, the joys of the English language). I read what I see in this story, and cannot pick holes in the reports. So, in that regard it is credible. But it is hard to believe that such a thing can happen - therefore we can describe it as "incredible".

The story says: "Thousands of birds have fallen from the skies over Esperance and no one knows why".

It seems that autopsies have been conducted on many of these birds, and no obvious reason can be found for the death of these birds. Poison and infection ("bird flu"?) appear to have been ruled out. Incidentally, bird flu seems to mostly be an issue with water birds, which tend to hang out in huge numbers, and in large flocks.

More significantly, this apparently started before the big storm hit last week. That was my original theory - exhaustion from trying to fly against the storm. Or even some massive electrical effects of the storm. But apparently not. Not if it started three weeks ago.

Singing Honeyeater
It is interesting that of the main species listed - Wattlebirds, Yellow-throated Miners, New Holland Honeyeaters, and Singing Honeyeaters - are all in the family of Honeyeaters. All are nectar feeders and insectivores. These birds are not normally represented in huge numbers, and they are not the obvious, colourful birds which people normally notice (not like Parrots, for example).

Some other species, such as Crows, Hawks and Pigeons are listed, but not in the same numbers as the others. Crows are carrion eaters - so they could get poisoned or diseased from eating other dead birds. Hawks are hunters, but could be poisoned or diseased form eating live birds, but that is less likely. But Pigeons are out of the frame completely. They are seed eaters, not at all likely to be eating the same foods as the other birds.

It is all very odd indeed.

"Acting chief veterinary officer Fiona Sunderman said toxins were the most likely cause but the deaths could be due to anything from toxic algae to chemicals and pesticides.

"Dr Sunderman said there were no leads yet on which of potentially hundreds of toxins might be responsible. Some birds were seen convulsing as they died."

My money is on some form of insecticide spray - but for all the Honeyeaters to have gone first, it requires their food sources (mainly native flowering trees such as Eucalypts and Banksias) to have been poisoned. Why? Has there been an outbreak of spraying of Christmas Beetles in WA? That my best guess.

Until more reports come to light, we should leave this report up in the air. I would not mind betting that it is some form of human "cock-up" but, those are the hardest cases to prove, because if it is something like that, then the humans responsible will be covering their tracks, and denying any knowledge.

"Smoke gets in your eyes" - all the way from Victoria

Today, in the early afternoon, I was at Lucy's place, in East Kangaloon. Lucy noticed that it looked smokey outside. So we went outside, and sure enough, we could smell smoke.

Where was it coming from, we wondered. It was very thick to the east - further along Tourist Road. But Lucy noticed that the wind was coming from the south-west. Very odd. The sky was fairly clear in that direction, but very heavily smoked in the eastern quarter.

Shortly after this, the sky cleared, and we all relaxed.

Later in the afternoon, I heard on a weather report on the ABC local radio that a cool change which had blown in from the south-west had brought in a wall of smoke coming from the East Gippsland fires. That's pretty extraordinary. It was also odd that the smoke was so dense, given that it had travelled some 500 Kms.

Obviously a very tightly confined wind pattern had brought in the smoke, and then, as the "front" passed by us, the concentrated cloud of smoke then started to disperse. Still it gave us an anxious wait for half an hour or so.

*****

That's easy for us to say. It's a lot different for the people of East Gippsland. The fires, while not as large as the pre-Christmas fires, are quite nasty, and are located somewhat closer to settled areas, it seems.

Let's hope they do not lose any homes, or other property (and lives, of course).

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As a follow up to the previous two Blog Entries, about the WA storms, the Western Australian Government has declared the Esperance region a natural disaster area in the wake of last week's storm. Follow this Link to the ABC News site for more details.

WA's big storm might bring rain to Victoria

According to a report in "The Sydney Morning Herald" today:
"The remnants of tropical cyclone Isobel were lashing a wide area of Western Australia's south with heavy rain and damaging winds today."
According to the satellite photo (at left) (courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology), the clouds appear to be centred on the Goldfields district. However, the pressure chart (below) indicates that the storm is actually further north than that.

The report in the SMH goes on: "Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Noel Puzey said the system would move into the Great Australian Bight by tomorrow and would probably bring rain to fire-ravaged Victoria by the weekend."

*****

My father always told me that the really good rains in the eastern half of the continent were usually the "wash" from a tropical cyclone coming in from the north west of the continent, and heading into the gulf country of Queensland, then continuing down into central NSW. Those storms are the key to the rivers which flood Lake Eyre and the Darling River system. Those floods are the stuff of legend - part of the great Australian myth.

If you look again at the satellite photo (top) and imagine that system having started a bit further to the east, the story is pretty much the same. The blue line indicating the "trough of low pressure" more or less marks it path across WA - so far. It is dumping large amounts of rain on the normally dry "Goldfields" region of WA and a bit further south, as I write. If the forecasters are correct, and the storm spins down over the Great Australian Bight, and then curls back into South Australia, it could indeed dump a large amount of rain into South Australia and Victoria.

Lets hope so. They need it.