Spotted this fella while riding this morning.
Went home and got the camera plus the kids and Poppy, who donned the gloves and rescued the rosella.
He flew off okay so hopefully he'll live.
PS - Here's some more good karma
PPS - Here's an article about the threat to wildlife posed by barbwire that I've written for work:
Curb your barbs
Barbed wire, particularly when used as the top strand of a fence, poses a threat to many native species.
Back in the 1890s, a fencing census recorded 1.6 million kilometres of fences in NSW. Fencing historian John Pickard has estimated that tens of millions of kilometres of fences now subdivide the Australian landscape. In a national survey of 3,642 sites, Pickard found that 78 per cent of fences had barbed wire and 65 per cent had barbed as the top strand.
In September 2006 a headless Night Parrot was found in western Queensland. The cause of death was collision with a barbed wire fence. It came 17 years after the last sighting of this critically endangered bird. Prior to that, the Night Parrot hadn’t been sighted for more than 80 years.
There are 70 species that have been found entangled in barbed wire fences in Australia, including about 50 birds. Carol Booth, author of the Draft Barbed Wire Action Plan (2007), estimates a large toll for these creatures, between 100,000 and one million each year.
Most wildlife is caught on the top strands of a fence and most entanglements occur at night, suggesting that fences pose a significant threat for owl, bat and glider species. There are also hotspots for entanglement, such as around wetlands, creeks, food trees and along ridgelines.
Given the kilometres of existing barbed wire, it will require an enormous effort to reduce this threat to wildlife. Alternatives include placing split polypipe or used electric fencing tape on existing fences to improve visibility.
It’s thought that many graziers resist changing fencing methods, thinking there’s a risk in a new approach when barbed wire has worked for decades. However, highly tensioned plain wire is good for almost all situations. It’s cheaper, requires fewer fence posts and has a benefit in that it does not scar the hides of cattle, which potentially adds value. The title of a contribution to a Western Australian Department of Agriculture manual bluntly states ‘Plain wire works in pastoral areas’.
The Wildlife Friendly Fencing website proposes two options for improving fences: removing barbed wire or making the fence more visible. For more information visit www.wildlifefriendlyfencing.com/glines.htm
