Vol. 17, No. 2 September 2006 - Indigenous Flora and Fauna ...

Waterbirds of the Coorong (continued)
Summer was in the middle of the breeding season for
some migratory waders, including Red-necked
Avocets and Fairy Terns. On one afternoon I was
lucky enough to be selected for the boat crew to visit
a nesting island to capture and mark Fairy Terns. The
Avocets lay eggs directly on the mottled sandy rocks
where their speckled surfaces are cryptic so avoiding
stepping on any was a real challenge – we saw them
seconds before putting a foot down
continuity of ecosystems, destroying a large area of
shrubland, creating an arid gash ex-tending 3 km
through the ancient dunes and altering the water
flows on his own land and in the Coorong into which
the drain empties. Allegedly the massive earthmoving
project breached several planning laws and
heritage approval procedures, but was retrospectively
legitimised by the Liberal government.
Avocet eggs on offshore island
The Coorong is an area in big trouble – its status as a
major feeding and breeding site for migratory waders
is under serious threat, the mix of species is changing
in important ways – a very large number of Banded
Stilts had appeared this year, a species formerly rare
in the area, responding to the changing salinity and
the appearance of the brine shrimp on which they
feed. The major declines have been observed among
Small Migratory Waders, whose food needs have
been severely damaged by the reduced water flows
through the semi-closed Murray mouth.
Fairy Terns are in serious decline on the Coorong,
down from over 1000 breeding pairs to under 300.
We rascals ran around the rugged rocks capturing
flutter-ing little chicks, which would suddenly disappear,
as they sat down against the eroded and jagged
limestone and were so cryptic they were hard to find.
David’s daughters had made some wire traps to
capture and mark the parents, to help assess how far
they were flying to their feeding sites. We observed
Silver Gulls, which have become very abundant along
the estuary and are now a big problem for waders,
trying to steal eggs or chicks and being mobbed by
aggressively defensive parent birds.
On our last day we were taken to an infamous site at
which one of the neighbouring land-owners had
excavated a huge drain to remove water from the
wetlands on his heritage-listed prop-erty, severing the
Solutions to the problems of the waders and other
sea birds require a multi-pronged program of action
– increasing environmental flows along the Murray-
Darling system, bringing an end to land-clearing
inland of the Coorong, which is destroying habitat of
short-distance migratory birds, and enforcing heritage
and planning laws to prevent such atrocities as
the above drain from being constructed.
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Indigenous Flora and Fauna Association Inc. (Incorporated Association No A0015723B)