birding-aus

Is cleanliness next to birdlessness?

To: "Chris Corben" <>
Subject: Is cleanliness next to birdlessness?
From: Carl Clifford <>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:06:51 +1000
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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