Jacky Winter

Jacky Winter (Image ID 50245)
Photographed byMichael Hamel-Green on Thu 10th Feb, 2022 and uploaded on Fri 11th Feb, 2022 .
Resolution1800x1012
Viewed266
ID50245
CommentA Jacky Winter perched in a thicket of thistles at the T-Section Lagoon, Werribee. I did not hear its call but apparently that is what gives them their name, since the call sounds like “jacky-jacky winter-winter”. Perching is not just an idle moment of rest. Rather, as an insectivore, they are constantly looking around for a fly-past or ground-crawl of their next meal, whether in the air or on the ground. In the middle of these thistles, JW was constantly looking around, no doubt with a juicy crane-fly in mind, swarms of them in the air around at the time. While it is still classified as common around Australia, apparently all the subspecies of Jacky Winter are declining across the country and becoming locally extinct in some parts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacky_winter). One of the key factors alongside the shrinking and degradation of their habitats is climate change: “What threatens the Jacky Winter in Australia is rising temperature and evapotranspiration, causing more droughts and increasing fire severity and frequency. It is expected that these will impact the availability of food, as well as safe nesting sights and refugees from predators” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacky_winter). So the fate of our tiny Jacky Winters, as for all species, is in our human hands. As the song goes, “we’ve got the whole world, the whole wide world, in our hands”, yet, mindlessly, we are letting it slip through our hands in endless prevarication on the urgent steps we need to take to deal with the climate emergency. Jacky Winters are just another of many new canaries in the coal mine, signalling the fate of all of us if we do not act now.
EquipmentNikon Z7ii, Nikon 500mm PF f5.6 TC1.4
700mm
ISO 1250
1/1250th f8
LocationT-Section Lagoon, Western Treatment Plant, Werribee, Victoria
Keywordsadult
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