The Goonoo Important Bird Area is a 1034 km² tract of wooded land in

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It lies between the towns of

Dubbo Dubbo () is a city in the Orana Region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest population centre in the Orana region, with a population of 43,516 at June 2021. The city is located at the intersection of the Newell, Mitchell, and Gol ...

Gilgandra Gilgandra is a country town in the Orana region of New South Wales, Australia, and services the surrounding agricultural area where wheat is grown extensively together with other cereal crops, and sheep and beef cattle are raised. Sitting at t ...

and

Dunedoo Dunedoo ( ) is a village of 1,021 inhabitants situated within the Warrumbungle Shire of central western New South Wales, Australia. Dunedoo is well known to Australian travellers due to its distinctive name (''Dunny'' is a colloquial Australian ...

, about 200 km north-west of

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. Formerly the Goonoo State Forest, much of the land is now within the Goonoo State Conservation Area (538 km²) and the adjacent Goonoo National Park (91 km²). The

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) also includes (18 km²) of the Coolbaggie Nature Reserve.

Description

Goonoo IBA is mainly

box A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and can ...

ironbark Ironbark is a common name of a number of species in three taxonomic groups within the genus ''Eucalyptus'' that have dark, deeply furrowed bark. Instead of being shed annually as in many of the other species of ''Eucalyptus'', the dead bark accu ...

callitris ''Callitris'' is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae (cypress family). There are 16 recognized species in the genus, of which 13 are native to Australia and the other three (''C. neocaledonica, C. sulcata'' and ''C. p ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

with patches of mallee. It is surrounded by farmland. Past forest management involved logging the larger box trees to promote the growth of cypress pine and ironbark, but the site is now managed primarily for conservation. Much of the area was burned in

fires Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames are pr ...

in 2007.BirdLife International (2011) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Goonoo. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 25/06/2011

Birds

The site was identified as an IBA because it supports an isolated population of the vulnerable

malleefowl The malleefowl (''Leipoa ocellata'') is a stocky ground-dwelling Australian bird about the size of a domestic chicken (to which it is distantly related). It is notable for the large nesting mounds constructed by the males and lack of parental ca ...

as well as populations of

diamond firetail The diamond firetail (''Stagonopleura guttata'') is a species of estrildid finch that is endemic to Australia. It has a patchy distribution and generally occupies drier forests and grassy woodlands west of the Great Dividing Range from South Ea ...

s and

painted honeyeater The painted honeyeater (''Grantiella picta'') is a species of honeyeater in a monotypic genus. Taxonomy A member of the family Meliphagidae, ''Grantiella picta'' is the sole species under this genus. The painted honeyeater was first described ...

s. It also supports

glossy black-cockatoo The glossy black cockatoo (''Calyptorhynchus lathami''), is the smallest member of the subfamily Calyptorhynchinae found in eastern Australia. Adult glossy black cockatoos may reach in length. They are sexually dimorphic. Males are blackish bro ...

Gilbert's whistler The Gilbert's whistler (''Pachycephala inornata'') is a monotypic species of bird endemic to Australia, scattered in semi-arid zones of southern Australia. Taxonomy The family Pachycephalidae originated within the Australo-Papuan region. Toget ...

s, and the easternmost, isolated, population of yellow-plumed honeyeaters.

References

Important Bird Areas of New South Wales Central West (New South Wales) {{CentralWestNSW-geo-stub