GRASSY hills dotted with orange trunked gum trees, rocky dry looking country that in the wet season is crossed by little creeks that run only after the rain.
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This doesn’t sound a terribly inviting place to most of us.
There are however some amazing little birds up in Northern Australia who love this type of landscape.
Gouldian finches are small seed eating birds that eat different types of grass seed depending on the time of year.
In the wet season they like to eat seed from grasses such as the spiky looking Spinifex.
During the breeding season they eat mainly ripe and half ripe seeds from tall spear grass and during the dry season they search on the ground for seed that has fallen after fires have burnt the countryside.
Gouldian finches are also very particular about where they will raise their chicks and will only nest in the tree hollows of smooth barked gum trees.
The Gouldian finch is one of the most colourful of finches and is a very popular pet all over the world.
It will also breed very happily in aviaries.
This is fantastic as Gouldian finch numbers have dropped quite dramatically in the last 100 years and they are now considered to be endangered in the wild.
Many people have been working together to try and find different ways to help protect Gouldian finches.
In some areas fences have been put up to keep cattle away from the types of grass that Gouldian finches like to eat.
In other areas scientists have been working to change the times of year that fire burns on Gouldian finch country.
This fire story is a very complicated one however as in the dry season Gouldian finches rely on fire to burn the undergrowth so they can find grass seeds on the ground, but in the wet season they like to feed in places that were not burned during the previous dry season as these places will have plenty of seeds for food.
Scientists, park rangers and station owners across Northern Australia have been working together to try and unravel all the mysteries of the complex little Gouldian Finch.
This way they will try to make sure that this very beautiful little buddy will be decorating the woodlands across the North of Australia for many years to come.
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