Chris,
I think you are right. Where are some of the best spots for waders and
waterfowl in Australia? The answer can be spelled in 3 letters; STW.
Sewage Treatment Works, from Melbourne to Darwin, offer some of the
best birding in the country. To paraphrase the old Yorkshire saying,
"where there is muck, there's birds.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
On 13/04/2009, at 3:07 PM, Chris Corben wrote:
Hi all
A depressing conversation with Jill Denning about the precipitous
decline of waders and terns in northwest Moreton Bay made me wonder if
anyone has actually come up with a reason for this. I carelessly
remarked that maybe people and dogs were the problem, but when I think
about it, that doesn't make much sense.
One of the really big changes in Moreton Bay in the last 30 or 40
years has been the standard of sewerage treatment. In the 70's, you
could walk out along the pipe to the outflow at Luggage Point and
watch the foul-smelling black gunk pour straight into the mouth of the
Brisbane River. It was heaven! There were always a few hundred White-
winged Black Terns diving into the mass of mullet writhing around at
the end of the pipe and thousands of waders crowded the mudflats. A
great joy was standing back in the mangroves and watching the waders
pile onto the first bits of mud exposed by the falling tide.
If you think about it, most of the really good wader sites are
fundamentally filthy places. As a youth, I loved the smell of
sewerage, as it meant the possibility of some good Sandpipers nearby.
Much of my most enjoyable birding was done around places which really
weren't very nice - typically bits of foul land lying around the backs
of industrial sites, or sewerage outfalls. They always smelled!
Is it possible our anti-pollution obsession has killed the Bay's
productivity? Perhaps we could restore some of it by cutting back on
the treatment, presumably at negative cost. NEGATIVE COST! Better
hurry, before everyone gets used to nice clean sand the kids can play
in.
Cheers,
Chris Corben.
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