The topic for our July meeting was a presentation of the results of the Shorebirds 2020 Count for the Peel Yalgorup Ramsar System. The presenter was Bob Patterson, the coordinator of the Mandurah Bird Observers Group, the Peel branch of Birdlife WA. Shorebirds 2020 is a program underway at Birdlife Australia, in collaboration with the Australian Wader Study Group (AWSG). The aim of the program is to coordinate national shorebird monitoring in Australia. The AWSG website states that the primary objectives of the program are to collect data on the number of shorebirds in a manner that can be utilized to aid their conservation and management, specifically long and short-term population trends, and explore what may be causing those changes.

Bob opened the presentation with a slide showing the East Asia Flyway between Australia and New Zealand, Eastern Asia countries such as China, North and South Korea, Japan through to breeding grounds in the Arctic. The Peel-Yalgorup Ramsar Sites are a key destination for the migratory shorebirds escaping the arctic winter. The Peel-Yalgorup Shorebirds 2020 count area covers 26,000ha and is the largest count area in the country. In 2016 a total of 69 volunteers were involved in the count, which was performed in early February. The volunteers receive training at shorebird identification workshops run by Bill Rutherford. The count methodology is that on the day of the count an experienced team leader together with a small team is responsible for counting birds within a designated zone. He then discussed how numbers were estimated when faced with the complexity of large numbers of birds in a location. The issue was highlighted using photos of large flocks of Pelicans on a sandbar, Banded Stilts feeding in the shallows, Red-necked Stints and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers feeding together and Sandpipers in flight.  Results were compiled onto forms provided by the Shorebirds 2020 project. A summary of the overall results of this year’s count showed that a total number of 28,656 birds were counted from 57 species. A breakdown of the numbers shows that there were 8,336 waders, 5,490 shorebirds and 14,836 waterbirds counted. A further breakdown by species is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. 2016 Count – Breakdown by Species

How the total numbers compared to previous years was then shown. The chart shows that historically there is significant variation in the totals from year to year. Bob discussed the reasons for, and the species that had the most impact on, the variations in annual totals. For example in 2010 the total number included 10,000 Grey Teal and 27,000 Banded Stilts and in 2013 there were 9,400 Grey Teal, 9,000 Black Swans and 39,200 Banded Stilts. However, in 2016 key wetlands, such as Lake McLarty, had dried out early in the summer resulting in significantly lower numbers for those species and other species such as the migratory shorebirds.

Bob then showed a series of slides that showed the trends for the species that meet the various Ramsar criteria (eg. 1% Population Threshold). Bob finished off the presentation by discussing some of the other impacts affecting shorebirds in the Peel-Yalgorup system. A photo of cars, some with boat trailers, others with horse floats at Herron Point highlighted the impact of crabbers, fishermen, dog walkers, horse exercising etc. on the birds feeding on the mud flats. He showed a slide showing the comments section from one of the count forms that indicated that a crabber with a dog evacuated a whole sandbank of birds a total of four times during the period of the count.  Disturbingly another slide showed an area of mud flats littered with spent shotgun shells.

The audience thanked Bob for presenting the results of the count, which they found very interesting and for the copies of the latest Birdlife WA Newsletters and Identification booklets for Wetland Birds of South-western WA that he had provided to the group.

Colin Prickett