Malleefowl survive summer bushfires through ingenious nests, but danger remains
By Andrew Kelso
ABC Wimmera
Topic:Birds
8m ago8 minutes agoSat 29 Mar 2025 at 8:25pm
Loading...
In short:
When bushfires tore through the Little Desert National Park in January, conservationists were concerned.
It was one of the few areas in Western Victoria where malleefowl, considered vulnerable, remained in the state.
What's next?
DEECA and the Malleefowl Recovery Group will continue checking on the burnt nests and releasing newly hatched chicks in protected areas.
The ingenuity of the ground-dwelling malleefowl has helped it to survive Victoria's summer bushfires, but conservationists say the vulnerable hatchlings now face a new challenge.
The malleefowl, considered vulnerable in Australia, is close to the heart of people in Western Victoria.
Its image adorns signs on the roads into local towns, and its distinctive call is even said to lend its name to the district of Lowan.
A metal sign depicting an image of two small brown birds picking at a dirt mound, with the words Welcome to Nhill
Nhill is in the electorate of Lowan, supposedly named after the malleefowl's distinctive call. (ABC Wimmera: Andrew Kelso)
So when ravaging bushfires tore through the Little Desert National Park in January, one of the few areas where the malleefowl remained, conservationists were concerned.
But it turns out their fears were unfounded.
Parks Victoria chief scientist Mark Norman said the birds appeared to have survived, despite more than 93,000 hectares of their habitat going up in flames.
"Some of the males have come back to mounds to work on [them] after the fire, so they continue to incubate the eggs after the fires," Dr Norman said.
Bird on mound of sticks and sand in bush scene with trees and scrub
Malleefowl mounds can be a metre tall and are built in a way that protects against fire. (Supplied: Cat Lynch)
Surviving the fire
Much of the bird's success comes down to the "ingenious" way the malleefowl builds its nest.
Malleefowl typically lay their eggs over spring and summer and leave them to incubate inside large above-ground nests until they hatch.
It is estimated there are only a few dozen nests in the Little Desert, with 2024-25 being a "low season" for malleefowl breeding.
People in high-vis vests and work uniforms dig at a sandy hole surrounded by burnt sticks
A fire started by a lightning strike burnt the majority of Little Desert National Park. (Supplied: Forest Fire Management Victoria)
Dr Norman said the fact that the nests were filled with compost and the temperature regulated to around 33 degrees Celsius could have helped them survive the bushfire.
"The mounds are good insulation, so the fires don't cook or burn the eggs or chicks, they can survive afterwards,"
he said.
The present danger
The impacts of the bushfires are still being felt in the region.
Dr Norman said the birds now faced "a bare landscape; there's no food and no cover from foxes".
He said work was underway to "rescue" eggs in bushfire-affected areas and "put them somewhere safe".
A malleefowl in the bush
Malleefowl are found all over Australia but are listed as vulnerable in Victoria. (Supplied: DELWP)
Some mounds have been found that are as big as 8 metres in diameter and over a metre tall.
"It's a really super, super sophisticated incubator, like they have in hospitals"
Dr Norman said.
A helping hand
Ray "Whimpey" Reichelt is a renowned local grassroots conservationist with a soft spot for malleefowl.
Since the 1980s, he has incubated numerous malleefowl eggs in a repurposed human baby humidicrib in his house in Nhill.
Mr Reichelt remembers naming the bird pairs he met when he first learned of their existence.
A man in a stripy shirt holds a faded book with yellowing pages in a kitchen
Mr Reichelt and his family established the Little Desert Nature Lodge, which burnt down in January. (ABC Wimmera: Andrew Kelso)
"I had that many down here: Charlie and Di, Romeo and Juliet, Jack and Jill, that many on this property, and they'd just become real tame," he said.
The 89-year-old founded the Little Desert Nature Lodge, which burned down during the January 2025 fires.
Following the fires, Parks Victoria and the Mallee Fowl Recovery Group asked if he could incubate three eggs that were rescued from nests in burnt-out areas of Little Desert National Park.
A man in a stripy shirt and bucket hat points at a machine with valves and a glass dome in the foreground
The modified baby humidicrib has incubated hundreds of malleefowl eggs. (ABC Wimmera: Andrew Kelso)
When two of them hatched a few days later, there was jubilation.
"I'd been away and I came back … and said, 'Oh, I must come and have a look and see how this incubator's going,' and the chick was just coming out," Mr Reichelt said.
The two successfully hatched chicks — weighing 126 grams and 124 grams, respectively — were then released into a fox-free protected block.
Dr Mark Norman is standing facing the camera on the top of Mount Oberon.
Parks Victoria's chief scientist Dr Mark Norman. (ABC Gippsland: William Howard)
Dr Norman said catastrophic natural disasters like the 2024-25 bushfires gave conservationists a chance to test their recovery systems and find new ways of adapting for future events.
"It's just giving us tools to deal with these really big, sudden fires, which are part of climate change and one of the really big challenges we're dealing with, but it's giving us tools all the time to do better," he said.
"Even with the malleefowl mound work, we've got situations where that arms us for any future fires."
Posted8m ago8 minutes agoSat 29 Mar 2025 at 8:25pm
Copy link
X (formerly Twitter)