In the early hours of 30 January 2024, the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Kirilly lay over Samford and dumped a staggering 350 mm of rain in just over 2 hours. As a result, the South Pine River rose to 7.4 metres (almost a metre higher than the February 2022 flood) in a couple of hours. The waters smashed the revegetation at the Samford Eco-Corridor and flooded the nearby bowls club causing havoc throughout Samford Valley. The ramifications were to affect my property a couple of kilometres away from the river.
Back in December 2020, I began planting a former mown lawn near my front gate with a mix of local native grasses, wattles, she-oaks and eucalypts, funded by a Land for Wildlife grant.
However, I hadn’t fully anticipated how rampant Blady Grass (Imperata cylindrica) would become over the subsequent wet summers: it smothered almost all the other grasses, except for a few Scented Top (Capillipedium spicigerum) and Barbed-wire Grasses (Cymbopogon refractus). My wife hates the area because it is almost impenetrable and hard to weed. I quipped “but this is perfect habitat for skulking wildlife. Quails and rails would love it”.
Early on 3 February 2024, a few days after the flood, I was birdwatching at my front gate when I heard ‘whoop whoop whoop whoop’ and contact clicks behind me. Out of context, the bird calls didn’t register immediately, but I soon realised I had Pale-vented Bush-hens in the front yard! I dashed to the house as quietly as I could to grab my camera and returned much more cautiously. I used very brief playback to try to pinpoint the birds, which elicited the territorial call immediately.
I surmised that the pair of bush-hens had been displaced from the South Pine River by the flood and had probably followed an ephemeral creek gully as far as the dam in my neighbour’s yard to the east, which is surrounded by rank grasses.
I realised that they would have to cross the track through my eucalypt woodland to get back to the dam, so I walked around and lay motionless on the ground hoping that they would show. Within minutes, one popped out of the dense understorey, but too close to focus with my 500 mm lens (less than 2.5 metres), giving us both a big shock, then it disappeared in an instant. They remained in the Blady Grass for about 40 minutes, occasionally poking their heads out, seemingly trying to determine how to get back to the dam without crossing an open area. Eventually they crossed the track, and I was able to get a few clear photographs at (bush-hen) eye level. This marvellous and very unexpected close encounter demonstrates the adage, ‘plant the habitat and they shall come’.
The pair hung around for a few weeks during the continued wet conditions (they were calling most days) and I last heard them near my neighbour’s dam on 18 March. A month later, I was removing some Cadaghi saplings from the Blady Grass area and came across an abandoned nest with 4 brown-speckled white eggs measuring 40×27 mm. The cup-shaped structure measuring 180 mm wide and 120 mm deep was made of grass and sat about 400 mm off the ground near a she-oak. It seems that conditions had been so good in February that the bush-hens had attempted to breed.
It is a great pity that they weren’t successful in raising a brood but I was thrilled to have a rare ‘breeding’ record on my own property. My wife conceded that this was very special and has developed a new-found admiration for Blady Grass (although she isn’t as enthusiastic about it as my Land for Wildlife Officer, Stefan Hattingh, was!).
Article and photos by Peter Storer
Land for Wildlife member
Samford, Moreton Bay