Blue Wren Subcommittee Annual Report 2026

By Andrew Wood, Blue Wren Subcommittee Convenor, from Bulletin 6/2026 (August)

The Subcommittee has 13 members and during the last 12 months met on three occasions. Here are some of the highlights (and sad losses) of the year.

Norma Hawkins and Mary Holt

Norma Disher Hawkins, the oldest member of the Glebe Society and a founding member of the Blue Wren Subcommittee, died in January at the age of 103. In 2007, concerns about the future survival of small birds in our suburb led to the formation of the Blue Wren Subcommittee. Norma continued as an active and enthusiastic member of the Subcommittee for the next 19 years. She also made a significant financial contribution to support the Society’s biodiversity lectures organised by the Subcommittee as well as the Craney Small Grants Program which provides funds for biodiversity projects in local schools.

As a member of the Subcommittee said ‘Norma was a Glebe icon, a treasure, a great community member, a wonderful and amazing person who contributed so much to all the lives she touched, how lucky we were to have her on our side and I wish she was still with us’. On 23 February, Councillor Matthew Thomson kindly proposed a vale for Norma at a meeting of the Council of the City of Sydney. The motion was unanimously accepted and was followed by a minute’s silence. Deputy Mayor, Jess Miller, then proposed that a park or reserve in Glebe be named in Norma’s honour. We all hope that John Street Reserve, which Norma loved so much, can be the selected reserve.

It is also with great sadness that we report the death in February 2026 of Mary Holt OAM at 87 years of age. Mary and her late husband, John, were very interested in the work of the Subcommittee and regularly came to our Autumn Party for Glebe’s bushcare volunteers. We also greatly appreciated their generous financial support of our annual biodiversity lecture.

Our bushcare groups

The Glebe Palmerston and Surrounds Landcare Group, led by Anna Szanto and Ros Vaughan, continue to supervise the work of bushcare volunteers on the first Sunday of the month.

Blue wren sightings

At the end of March, Judy Christie reported the appearance of a male and a female Superb Fairy-wren on the western edge of the mangroves at the bottom of Federal Park in Rozelle Bay. And within a week at much the same time, Kim Hague-Smith (a member of the Orphan School Creek Bushcare Group) also observed three wrens in the same patch of mangroves. These are classic stepping stone movements for small birds like Superb Fairy-wrens which have been absent from Glebe for most of the last 10-15 years. It is more than 20 years since mangrove seeds collected from Olympic Park were planted by the Council on the foreshore of Federal Park. We certainly did not expect that such a now well-established waterfront site could provide a safe habitat for blue wrens.

Spring bird survey

It was a perfect morning for finding birds on Sunday 19 October 2025 when 17 people, led by Judy Christie, set out for our annual spring bird survey. A total of 794 individual birds were seen, from 33 different species. As in previous years, the rainbow lorikeet was the most common species seen, often feeding on flowering bottlebrush and eucalypts. The noisy miner came in second and continues to be aggressive to most other birds, making a really challenging environment for small and medium birds.

Our survey of key habitat sites picked up most of the regular breeding native species (grey butcherbird, pied currawong, noisy miner and Australian magpie) with quite a few nests and juvenile birds. Not to mention the Australian brush turkey which we must now include as a regular breeding native species. The usual three introduced species (spotted dove, rock dove and common myna) were seen but numbers of the spotted dove seem to have crashed while the feral pigeon keeps increasing.

The outstanding count of 36 Australian figbirds (compared to five last year) could be due to several reasons. The wet winter encouraged the flowering and fruiting of Tuckeroos (Cupaniopsis anacardioides) which have been planted as street trees and have freely self-seeded in parks and gardens. Better bird identification skills by surveyors may also have helped. The figbirds also use figs and palms for roosting and feeding and were especially noisy during October. Similarly, our regular summer cuckoos – the eastern koel and channel-billed cuckoo – made themselves well heard. Several new birds appeared on our list this year including a king parrot and two grey teals.

The most productive habitat for small and less common birds was once again around the reintroduced mangroves at Rozelle Bay and along the edge of the bay where birds sometimes roost on boats and piers. Willie wagtails (our only small bird), magpie-larks and the striated heron were also seen. After a slow start, the mangroves have now grown sufficiently to provide a dense, protective habitat and could be more extensively introduced along the bay for fish habitat, improved water quality and of course roosting, feeding and breeding sites for native birds.

The Orphan School Creek Bushcare Group led by Judy Christie is in hibernation, following the disappointing destruction of its previous plantings of native flora by an unknown, probably local person(s). The Council held a planting day in the park last month (July 2026) and we are hoping that the newly planted flora are not vandalised. The Subcommittee also keeps watching briefs over additional parks: David Lawrence – Rozelle Bay foreshore parks; Bryan Herden – Arthur (Paddy) Gray Reserve; Janice and Nick Sangster – Harold Park and Johnstons Creek.

Glebe’s Hill

Members will recall that the Society had asked the City to designate the Hill as a wildlife refuge. The 0.6h site of contaminated Crown Land (the Hill was originally a garbage tip), between the light railway line and the Harold Park Tramsheds, is fenced and public access is supposedly restricted.

In October last year, Monica Barone (the City of Sydney’s Chief Executive Officer) said ‘We are now engaging an Environmental Consultant to assess the current site conditions and develop an on-going management plan. This will help us develop long term plans and determine whether we can act on your proposals, including your suggestion that the site be designated as a wildlife refuge and that no major remediation should occur.’ However, nine months later the Society has still not been able to arrange a meeting with the City and it appears that a consultant may not have been appointed.

Marcia Morley, the City’s Executive Manager Project Development and Delivery, was named as the contact person. Last month, the Acting President wrote to Ms Morley saying that the Society remains concerned about the security of the site which should be strictly off limits to the public, and that the fencing is continually being breached despite the best efforts of Council staff. We reminded her that back in 2010 the Council undertook to prevent public access to the site and to ensure any risks from contamination on the site are adequately controlled.

In response, the Council has recently repaired the gate and installed warning signs at the main entrance to the Hill but no signs have been placed at the western entrance near Johnstons Creek. Further, public access to the likely contaminated walkway between the Hill and the Tramsheds has not been blocked by secure gates and fencing, and there are no warning signs. The story continues!

2014 Urban Ecology Strategic Action Plan

In January this year, the Society responded to a request from the City to advise upon updates for its 2014 Urban Ecology Strategic Action Plan. The Society’s important recommendations were:

• to improve small bird habitat especially in pocket parks which are essential in habitat connectivity,
• to add Glebe’s Hill to the City’s list of biodiversity priority sites, and
• to ensure that in the future, biodiversity is a fundamental component of urban design by identifying critical areas that need protection and enhancement; biodiversity should be planned for spatially in the same way we would plan for human-centric urban infrastructure.

Johnstons Creek Parklands Masterplan (2013) and Plan of Management (2022)

The current Master Plan and Plan of Management are no longer fit for purpose and require updating. In December, the Acting President wrote to the Lord Mayor requesting that these documents be revised. In summary, the Society’s recommendations were:

• to actively investigate the feasibility of extending the plantings of mangroves to new areas in Bicentennial Park 2;
• to expand the areas of saltmarsh and to construct additional freshwater wetlands, and:
• to avoid a major remediation of Glebe’s Hill, to expand its size by including the pathway along its southern boundary and to designate the expanded Hill as a wildlife refuge.

In reply, the Lord Mayor said the City will look at ways to restore and protect important natural areas (as part of a new Coastal Management Program for outer Sydney Harbour), would renew the fencing around the Federal Park wetland and would be engaging an environmental consultant to assess the current site conditions on Glebe’s Hill and develop an ongoing management plan.

Kobi Shetty’s acknowledgement

In March, Kobi Shetty MP tabled a Community Recognition Statement in NSW Parliament saying that the Subcommittee’s ‘efforts contribute to creating a valuable urban wildlife refuge and strengthening biodiversity in the area. Events like the Blue Wrens Autumn Party (for our bushcare volunteers) are a wonderful example of their collaborative approach in action, creating opportunities for neighbours to connect and celebrate the vibrant community spirit that defines Glebe’.