Kirsty Costa

I was born on this country and I regularly return to see my family and friends.

I pay my respects to elders past and present and to their families.

This is Weekend Birder.

I'm Kirstie Costa.

And if you are a bird lover, you are in the right place, my friend.

One of the best things about this podcast is its community.

Each week, thousands of people from around the world tune in together.

And each week, some of those people use the form at weekendbirder.com to request a topic.

In this episode, we're focusing on woodland birds.

And I'm sending my thanks to Adam K., Bianca K., Emma L., John T., Shauna L., and Tony M. Some people fall in love with birds later in life, and some people grow up noticing them from a young age.

For our guest, Emmy Arnold, it started in the backyard.

These days, Emmy spends a lot of time with birds, but in a slightly different way.

Some weekend bird listeners may assume the worst when they hear about a housing or commercial development.

As a scientist who helps to survey and evaluate projects, Emmy sees it a little differently.

In Australia, a woodland is a forest that's halfway between a thick rainforest and a grassy plain.

In a woodland, the trees are spaced out enough that their branches don't touch.

This allows plenty of sunlight to filter down to the ground, creating a sunny floor where grasses, wildflowers and small shrubs can grow.

If you want to get really sciencey, the key feature of a woodland is the tree canopy cover.

Woodland usually has a canopy cover of between 10 and 30%.

And Emmy says that woodland categories are often named after the main tree that lives there.