78 species have been identified on and around the 180 bush camp. We also have other locations you can visit in the local area.

Today, almost 1 in 6 Australian birds are threatened with extinction. Our birds are facing growing threats like climate change, fire, habitat loss and predation by introduced species – which is why we’re stepping up our conservation here at Gidgee’s Bush Camp to protect the birds and education tourists on the species in our local area.

Many of our birds perform vital roles within our ecosystems: they keep other animals, plants, and insects in balance, spread seeds and pollen to create new life, and maintain healthy habitats.

Under the State Nature Conservation Act 1992 there are currently 49 bird species and subspecies listed as threatened in Queensland in addition to 14 pelagic birds. The following list is derived from the Queensland Department of Environment Land and Water website.

We have been working with birdo’s, tourists, and local people passionate about birds and their habitats. We combine the best of conservation practice and sound science to achieve critical changes to the bird populations in the Morven district.

To date we have identified over 78 species in and around the camping ground. Australia is home to 1,200 different birds, 45% of which are found nowhere else in the world. So at this stage we have identified around 6% of those species.
Queensland is also home to 72% of Australia’s native bird species, 85% of its native mammals and just over 50% of the country’s native reptiles and frogs.

We provide a list of the birds to our guests and encourage them to record sittings and new identifications. We then record that data and update our lists on a regular basis.
We have take on board a lot of suggestions from birdo’s, and have just started to record the names of the people that identify a new species, for reference to other birdo’s.
We have an online gallery of the identified species on our website for tourists to use as a reference, and we have a large collection of bird books here at the camp grounds that the tourist can use too.

Birds are our early warning system for threats to nature and to the ecology that supports our forests, farms, and fisheries. And there is no doubt that birds are more vulnerable than ever. They urgently need our help to survive.
Encouraging Birds
Water- We provided watering points that cover the 180acres of this property as well as our addition area. We have increased the size of our dam here on the camp ground to 5 3 times it size, with the aim to increase in larger in the years to come.
Flourishing habitat – We have planted 100’s of native trees and flowering scrubs to our camp ground. We have battled with a 10 year drought were our dam was dry for 3 years, and we lost 50% of our trees but we continue to replace and increase the number of planting thought out the camp ground. We still cart water to a high percentage of these trees and encourage our camper to water them with their grey water too
Protection from predators – We have trapped hundreds of cats on the grounds over the last 15 years. There was no bird life to speak of prior to this and we have now had over 70 species identified on and around the campground.
3 Goals

To increase the number of birds and a wider species to the grounds
Educate tourist about the bird species native to the area
Educate tourist about the damage that uncontrolled cats do to bird population
Educate tourist about species that are not native to the area such as Indian Minors
Eradicate the feral cat population.
Expend on the untapped tourism potential based around bird watching pin this region
Continue to identify more species in the area.

This year will see the first of our bird hides go in around the outer paddocks of the bush camp and in around the dam.

We have both a flock of Major Mitchells and babblers that nest in behind the dam which are always of particular interest to bird watches. We have seen them spend hours tying to get a photo of the Major Mitchells and learn to Liston for their calls.
Fairy wren fly in and out of the gardens and building singing too and entertaining campers.