National Beach-nesting Birds Conference 2015

May 15 – 16th

Point Nepean, Victoria

Overview

The 5th Annual National Beach-nesting Birds Conference and Workshops were held at

Point Nepean National Park on the Mornington Peninsula over two days (May 15-16th,

2015). There were over 130 attendees from across Australia, with people travelling from

New South Wales, South Australia (Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula, Fleurieu Peninsula,

Adelaide, SE SA), and from across Victoria (from as far east as Marlo and west as

Portland).

The attendees backgrounds were diverse, with land managers participating from agencies

such as Parks Victoria, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP),

Barwon Coast Committee, Phillip Island Nature Parks (PINP), Port Phillip and Westernport

Catchment Management Authority (PPWCMA), City of Greater Geelong (COGG), Hobson

Bay City Council, Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management

(AMLR NRM), South East NRM, and the Department of Environment, Water and Natural

Resources (DEWNR) SA. Other attendees included academics from Deakin University and

Victoria University, Ecology Australia, Geelong Sustainability, ecotourism operators,

Beach-nesting Bird volunteers, ‘Friends of’ groups, BirdLife Australia members and the

general public.

The event was funded by BirdLife Australia, the State Government of Victoria and the

Hugh D. T. Williamson Foundation. Attendees from the Fleurieu Peninsula were

sponsored by the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM Board.

Day 1 Conference, Q & A expert panel and field trips

The main objectives of the day were to provide a snapshot of research findings around

coastal management for resident shorebirds from around Australia, updates on the

efforts that are currently undertaken to protect beach-nesting birds, and the role of

BirdLife Australia’s Beach-nesting Birds project to coordinate these efforts. The day

aimed to create opportunities for networking and to build the capacity of current

volunteers and land managers by exposing them to new research findings, a big picture

overview of conservation direction for beach-nesters, and new ideas for on-ground and

education actions. The meeting also acts as a National Hooded Plover Recovery update

and facilitates adaptive management for future recovery actions. For new volunteers and

members of the public, it is an opportunity to learn more about beach-nesting birds, the

issues affecting them and efforts occurring to protect them.

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Conference Presentations:

Below is a summary of the key points covered:

Mr Adam Magennis, Mornington Peninsula Shire Cultural Heritage Officer, welcomed

the Beach-nesting Birds Conference attendees to Country. Adam also spoke about the

local indigenous people, the Boon Wurrung and the cultural heritage to the area. He

mentioned dreamtime stories of areas of beach (Fingal - St Andrews Beach) where

ancestors would not walk at certain times of years, and pondered whether it was to

avoid the nesting of the beach-nesting birds in the shell middens at those sites.

Dr Grainne Maguire, Coast and Marine Program Manager, BirdLife Australia, presented

on the evolution of the Beach-nesting Birds Project over the past nine years. Getting

carried away with the theme of beach-nesting bird recovery being a journey, Grainne

used the analogy of the Yellow Brick Road and the characters of the Wizard of Oz

became all the key stakeholders of the project: volunteers representing the ‘heart’;

researchers providing the ‘brains’ and the baseline knowledge from which we progress

and adapt our recovery actions; policy makers needing to show ‘courage’ in their

decision making and to put the environment ahead of short-term economic gain

or misguided social pressure; community representing ‘the home’ and our need to

build ownership of coastal conservation within the community; land managers being

the ‘ruby slippers’ who facilitate recovery actions; the non-compliant being the ‘wicked

witch of the west’ and education being the ‘bucket of water’ that dispenses of the

witch! She explained that the yellow brick road, the Beach-nesting Birds project,

brings all these stakeholders together to lead us to the same destination, our goals of:

healthy and self-sustaining populations of beach-nesting bird species, healthy and

resilient coastal habitats, and responsible and caring communities. Our strength is in

being a diverse team that works towards the same goals.

Hooded Plover recovery results for Victoria and South Australia, were presented from

2006-2015 showing the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and land managers has led

to major increases in breeding success of the species, with protected nests accounting

for double to quadruple the fledgling output each season. She revealed that in the

absence of management input, pairs exposed to human impacts had as little as 0-5%

chance of fledging a chick, however, with input, this was boosted to 40-50% ; the

equivalent of success experienced by pairs occupying remote stretches of beach. Over

nine breeding seasons, 112 fledglings have come from sites that were assessed as not

requiring management (due to their remoteness). An additional 244 chicks have been

successfully produced at disturbed nesting sites by implementing breeding site

protection.

Left to right: Joris Driessen, Meg Cullen, Glenn Ehmke, Diane Lewis, James O’Connor, Rob Quinn, Grainne Maguire, Renee Mead, Stacey Maden. Photo Dan Weller.

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Diane Lewis, President of the Friends of the Hooded Plover Mornington Peninsula Inc.

spoke about how she became involved with the project: a chance meeting with a

Parks Victoria ranger who was erecting a temporary rope fence on a back beach that

her family visit regularly ignited her interest in Hooded Plovers. A phone call from

Grainne the next day, and an introduction to and consequent walks along the beach

with Val Ford and Glenn Ehmke, and she was hooked! For years Diane had spent all

her time looking out to sea watching over her kids, but she had never really noticed

what was happening on the sand. Volunteers have been involved with Hooded Plovers

as far back as 1980 when monthly counts first began on the peninsula back in 1980! It

was in 2006 when BirdLife Australia approached the group and active nest monitoring

then took off, with data collected in a standardised way. In 2010, the group became

an incorporated Friends group and has now grown to 55 members who not only

monitor and protect nests, but also produce a local newsletter, run public awareness

events and deliver education programs for local primary schools incorporating the

BirdLife Australia Education Kit. The Friends group has also been successful in

receiving CoastCare, BirdLife Australia, Parks Victoria and RACV grants to permanently

fence nesting habitat, develop signage for the SeaRoad Ferry terminals and ferries

“Surf beaches are Hooded Plover country”, and develop a ‘where can I walk my dog’

brochure. The biggest challenge for the birds on the Mornington Peninsula is the huge

influx of people visiting the National Park, with an estimated 3.5 million people visiting

every year. The Friends groups’ next project is finishing their Strategic Plan. The

group is now 5 years old and has some very experienced people on the committee and

as members. It was felt the group now need a more structured approach for the

future. The Strategic Plan includes dividing up the 20 breeding territories in the MPNP

into 4 sections, each section having a beach leader, each beach leader will be

responsible to ensure adequate monitoring of their section by volunteers. Any

management issues will be reported back to the coordinator and PV. We also aim to

have a better understanding of member’s skills and interests by setting up a survey,

and develop a wider range of communication channels to increase younger

membership and participation.

Jean Turner, Samphire Coast Icon Project Officer and Aleisa Lamanna, Samphire Coast

Icon Project Manager, BirdLife Australia, talked about BirdLife Australia’s efforts to

conserve beach-nesting birds and migratory shorebirds in the coastal areas north of

Adelaide. With the Samphire Coast being a strong hold for the Red-capped plover, the

program aims to achieve an ongoing monitoring and engagement program using the

Red-cap as the icon species for protecting that stretch of coast. With so much

available habitat, the first few years have focused on trying to determine which areas

are used for breeding by the birds and which are accessible for ease of monitoring.

The remote nature of sites, the thick sinking mud of the claypans, and the small

human population in the area mean that there are many challenges with monitoring.

One volunteer for example travelled 1,500 km in monitoring trips in 2013-14!

Jean Turner; Photo Dan Weller. Adam Magennis presenting; Photo Dan Weller.

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Moving forward, the aim will be to use this information to narrow down monitoring to

a smaller number of sites so as to improve the quality of data and not to spread

volunteers too thin on the ground. The program now uses the online MyBeachBird

Data portal to collect breeding and threat data, and the banding program is underway

after a visit from Deakin University researchers. This will facilitate more research on

the breeding statistics and movements of these gorgeous little birds, particularly as

they are semi-colonial meaning it can be very challenging to work out which parent

belongs with which nest!!

Joris Driessen, Biennial Count Coordinator Volunteer, BirdLife Australia gave us all an

update from the 2014 Biennial Count for Beach-nesting birds. He firstly began by

explaining that this is a population-wide Hoodie census (all mainland habitat for the

Eastern subspecies), it covers all suitable Hoodie habitat using fixed routes and occurs

in a fixed time frame, timed with the peak of territory occupation. To put this into

context, it is a massive achievement to get 400+ volunteers to survey over 2,350 km

of coastline for Hooded Plovers, Red-capped Plovers, Pied and Sooty Oystercatchers,

and breeding colonies of Terns all within a narrow window of time (75% of data

collected within one week in mid November). Volunteers spent nearly 1000 hours of

carrying out 537 surveys: the equivalent of 125 eight hour working days, and this

didn’t even include travel time or return journeys for those who had to do their routes

up and back! There were over 2,500 observations, totalling approximately 9,500 birds

of all species combined. Of these there were 676 Hoodie observations, totalling 1,406

birds (adults and juveniles). Most impressive were the 200 observations of Hoodie

bands/flags. The 2014 survey even had to add Beach-Stone Curlew to the data sheet,

now that we have a number of individuals that are occupying Victoria, and even South

Australia, more recently!

Laura Tan, Research Assistant and PhD candidate, Deakin University, presented

research by Dr Mike Weston and his team working on Red-capped Plovers at

Cheetham wetlands, Victoria. The topic of this talk was Cover and nesting Red-capped

Plovers: A trade-off between thermal environment and predator risk. Within a

landscape there can be multiple habitat types available for nesting, and within a given

habitat, there can be a range of microhabitats available. Microhabitat can have a

critical influence on breeding success and survival/condition of the incubating

parent/s. Nesting in open habitat versus under cover can have its costs and benefits.

In the open, there may be early predator detection but high thermal exposure, and

under cover, the reverse may be true. The research team investigated this using red-

capped plovers as a model. Temperature loggers were used to measure the surface

temperatures of nesting substrate in open and closed habitats; predator risk was

measured using flight initiation distances of incubating birds in open and closed

habitats plus a visual assessment of the % bird’s view from the nest, and; predator

pressure was measured in different microhabitats using remote cameras on false and

real nests. The results revealed that cover is of thermal benefit and false nests under

cover appear to have higher survival. However, vision of approaching predators is

obstructed and flight initiation distances reduced. The survival of real nests did not

seem to differ for open and closed nests. Laura also mentioned that the team no

longer use cameras to monitor real nests as they were initially used en-masse for nest

monitoring and this unfortunately taught ravens to associate cameras with a tasty

meal. Please note that BirdLife use cameras on Hooded Plover nests under strict

protocols which have been specifically developed to avoid this predator learning.

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Dan Lees, PhD candidate, Deakin University, is researching sex ratios in shorebirds.

Bias in adult and offspring sex ratios can be critical to understand when working with

small and threatened populations. Overlooking sex biases can be disastrous in terms

of conservation programs such as translocations and captive breeding. For example,

the globally threatened Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni) had a male-biased adult sex

ratio in the wild. The captive breeding program kept females in average condition in

order to produce female-biased broods, as when females were in good/great condition

they would produce male-biased broods. Dan aims to explore sex ratios in populations

of three resident shorebird species: firstly to identify the mechanisms causing an

observed male sex-ratio bias in Red-capped Plovers and to then compare the sex-ratio

dynamics of this species with two other species (the Masked Lapwing and Hooded

Plover) whose adult sex-ratio is still unknown. In particular the aims are to determine:

1) if sex-ratio bias is occurring at hatching; 2) If sex-ratio bias is occurring through

sex-specific chick mortality, and; 3) if sex-ratio bias is occurring through adult

mortality. It is predicted that Red-capped plovers have a seasonal sex ratio bias, with

female chicks produced early in the breeding season, and males late in the season;

chick survival sex-bias where the male chicks are out surviving the females; and a

sex-bias settlement, females disperse with mortality.

Wouter Van Dongen, Post Doctorate Fellow from Victoria University discussed human-

wildlife conflicts, disturbance to Australia’s birds and the need for a balance between

increasing demand for open space (recreation) and the needs of wildlife in those

areas. The challenge in achieving this balance is that not all disturbances have an

equal impact, and each species has the potential to react in a different way. Wouter

then discussed research into Flight Initiation Distances, ‘FIDs’, and introduced the

database he and his team have created to assist land managers and planners in

determining appropriate buffer zones and in predicting which recreational activities

may be appropriate for a given area. The database calculates the average FID for each

of the bird species in the proposed works area and can do so for a variety of different

disturbance stimuli, including individual walkers, walkers with dogs, joggers, cars,

bicycles etc. So far the database has 9,638 FIDs for 286 species. The aim is that this

resource is used extensively to permit the co-existence between humans and wildlife.

The database is currently accessible at http://115.146.87.109/

BirdLife’s silent auction raises funds for beach-nesting bird protection; Panel of experts answer the audience’s questions; Photos Renee Mead.

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Keith Jones, from the Fleurieu Birdwatchers Inc, gave us an insight into the changes in

distribution and abundance for the Pied and Sooty Oystercatchers on heavily disturbed

beaches in the South East of the Fleurieu Peninsula. The sightings were collected over

a four year period, with bi-monthly surveys at 10 sites from the Murray River Mouth in

the east, to Middleton in the west. Pied Oystercatchers have made a significant shift in

abundance from ocean beaches in the west to the Murray Mouth in the east. Analyses

show negative associations between bird abundance and human activities, with a

significant negative relationship between off road vehicles and the birds at the Murray

Mouth. There is a season drop in abundance of pied oystercatchers along this coastline

that coincides with the breeding season (Sept-Jan), revealing that this site is of

greater importance to non-breeding birds. Sooty Oystercatchers were currently stable

on ocean beaches within the study site, with a significant increase at the Murray

Mouth. Possible reason for the shift towards the Murray mouth is because of an

increasing area of exposed sand flats, and a higher biomass and average size of pipis

at the Murray mouth. There were negative associations between sooty oystercatchers

and human activity and this was significant for the number of people at Goolwa beach.

There was a seasonal drop in sooty oystercatcher abundance that coincided with the

breeding season (Oct-Jan).

Sue Guinness, BirdLife Australia’s Regional Coordinator for the Friends of Hooded

Plover Surf Coast summarised several different studies between BirdLife Australia,

Deakin University and The University of Melbourne on the impacts of dogs on beaches,

and then expanded with her own study with Deakin University along the Surf Coast

(start of the Great Ocean Road, Victoria). On the surf coast there are 4,926 registered

pets. Achieving successful co-existence between needs of different recreational

groups, wildlife and dogs in public open spaces is complex. In Sue’s study, she

explored the attitudinal differences between residents and non-residents towards dog

regulation and management. This involved face-to-face and postal surveys to 434

people who take their dogs to beaches in Victoria. Respondents visited the beach

across weekends (97%) and weekdays (91%), with 33% being daily users of the

coast. Respondents indicated that the time they took their dog to the beach was

around their personal schedule (75%), while the times permitted by regulations were

important to only 44% of non-residents and 29% of residents! The reasons why

respondents chose to take their dog to the beach included: open space so the dog can

run freely (92%), plenty of space at beach (75%), no cars to worry about (69%), and

even that the dog likes to explore dunes (7.4%) and can chase birds (7%). Four

themes emerged from respondents being asked to show their level of agreement with

a series of statements around dog access and regulations. These were 1) compliance

and support for rules and regulations, 2) dog behaviour and control, 3) rights of dogs

and 4) value of dogs compared with wildlife. We hypothesised that residents and non-

residents may differ in their use attitudes toward dog walking on beaches. Overall

there were similarities between the attitudes of the two groups. Slight differences

were apparent: residents were less supportive of rules and regulations and more

supportive of the rights of dogs including beach access. There were demographic

differences between these groups where residents were older and more likely to be

retirees. Solutions to shaping attitudes toward dogs on beaches and resultant

compliance would therefore include education (differentiating by stakeholders and

taking the time to explain disturbance impacts), behaviour change programs (reinforce

compliance and social norms), planning that provides adequate off-leash areas that

avoid wildlife conflict, and reviews of current dog zoning.

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Rob Quinn, Senior Advisor to the Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews,

conveyed the objectives of the Threatened Species Commissioner to increase

community awareness and support for threatened species, and to extend responsibility

for threatened species to all Australians who can play a role in their protection. A big

focus of the Commissioner’s office is to prevent further extinctions and to tackle the

major predator impacts of cats on threatened small mammals and birds. One major

win is to eradicate cats from Christmas Island, where current pet owners have

committed to no further cat ownership once their pets pass away. There was also

mention of the Migratory Shorebird Conservation Plan being currently revised, and

that this should afford some protection for residents*. Rob said that while there may

not be a large budget available for threatened species conservation, that the

commissioner’s office seeks to overcome this by trying to connect threatened species

projects with suitable sponsors and set up partnerships where possible. Rob passed on

Gregory Andrews welcoming approach to hearing from the community; Gregory has

seen firsthand the amazing work that hoodie volunteers are carrying out in a number

of coastal locations that he has visited.

Email: ThreatenedSpeciesCommissioner@environment.gov.au

* note that this plan is unlikely to have overlap with many important areas for resident species, and

that the highly dispersed spatial distribution of breeding habitats of residents requires a different

conservation approach.

Maddie Glynn, Manager Community Liaison and Education at Barwon Coast, opened up

the eyes of conference attendees to the extent of damage being done by marine

debris, beyond the usual images of plastic ingestion. Plastic bags, fishing line and

ghost nets are marine debris we are highly familiar with, but Maddie revealed the

highly disturbing facts about microplastics and nurdles (tiny factory made pellets that

form raw materials for everyday plastics). There have been up to 40,000 pieces of

plastic recorded per square kilometre along the Australian coastline. Micro beads

found in everyday cosmetics, toothpastes, handwashes, cosmetics, and facewashes

and the surface of microplastics have been proven to attract and absorb persistent

organic pollutants, such as PCBs and DDT. Marine debris can also entangle coastal and

marine life, causing injury or death. Barwon Coast is working with Barwon Heads

Primary School to educate others about saying no to plastic bags when shopping, and

the environment team are responders to calls of injured wildlife.

Copies of the conference presentations are available on request. Please email

bnb.events@birdlife.org.au

Question & Answer expert panel session

The expert panel was made up of seven experts in their fields and they included:

Dr Grainne Maguire, Coast and Marine Program Manager, BirdLife Australia

Jonathon Stevenson, Marine Ranger, Parks Victoria (South Gippsland)

Jeanette Spittle, Co-ordinator Land Management, Environment and Natural

Resources, City of Greater Geelong

Andrea Dennett, Regional Coordinator, BirdLife Australia’s Friends of Hooded

Plover Bellarine Peninsula

Jon Fallaw, Ranger, Phillip Island Nature Park, Victoria

Deborah Furbank, Team Leader - Community, Department of Environment, Water

and Natural Resources, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

Glenn Ehmke, Senior Analyst, BirdLife Australia

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The panel were asked a range of questions by conference participants. These included:

What is the motivation behind the phrase ‘healthy parks, healthy people’? Does this

mean the focus for Parks Victoria is on provision of recreational opportunity?

Jonathon Stevenson answered this question by explaining that the phrase is supposed to

mean that the health of the park, that is its environmental values and flora and fauna

therein, are of primary focus for Parks Victoria, and this in turn creates a healthy

environment for people to visit and enjoy. Being outdoors in nature is known to offer

substantial benefits to people’s health and well being, and these are all intertwined within

the healthy parks, healthy people phrase. Jonathon highlighted that this did pose a

challenge to species such as Hooded Plovers where there is an obvious human-wildlife

conflict.

Why is data collected around the territory (site) rather than the pair via the MyBeachBird

data portal?

Grainne and Glenn answered this. It is because the information we need in order to be

able to protect Hooded Plovers centres around the type of threats the birds experience.

These threats operate at the scale of an individual site/territory. Even on the same beach

you could have one pair experiencing a very different threat profile to another, simply to

do with distance to the access point or the morphology of the beach. Also, you could

have the same pair breed at one site and experience different pressures that influence its

success compared to if that same pair nested at a different site. We collect data on how

the birds breed at different sites, the threats these sites experience and how these

threats change over time in response to management investment. We simultaneously

collect information about the pair’s identity (for banded/flagged birds) and can explore

the influence of age and partnership on success, however, the main priority is to be able

to control the impacts of threats at sites to give the birds a better chance at breeding.

When wardening on the beach, a common response by a dog owner with their dog off the

leash is to argue that foxes are more of a problem? How can I respond to this?

Answered by Grainne. There is no denying that Hooded Plovers are threatened from a

range of sources. The relative impacts of these threats is complex, and not as simple as

saying one threat is worse than another. There are also the interactions threats have

with one another, for example, if you tackle the threat of foxes, you are likely then to see

cats move in to fill that niche and become the next threat needing to be tackled.

There are several ways we can explore the impact of different threats. Mike Weston

carried out much research into the impacts of human disturbance (walkers, joggers, dogs

on leash, dogs off leash) and was able to compare the responses of the birds to each of

these. Dogs off leash had the greatest impact in terms of the disturbance effect on birds.

A second way to explore relative impacts is to look at a gradient of intensity of threats

and look for correlations (significant trends) between given threats and the likelihood of

breeding failure. This is what we have done with the threat data collected on the

Mornington Peninsula and have found that breeding failure is most highly correlated with

the intensity of off leash dog access, and to a lesser extent, the intensity of human use of

sites, while fox numbers did not appear correlated with the observed pattern of breeding

failure. It is important to note however, that fox control does occur in this park and that

fox impacts are therefore already being moderated.

In other regions, however, we have seen foxes take a toll on breeding success and even

on adult survival. Controlling this threat is extremely expensive, requires ongoing input

as foxes from surrounding areas will move into empty territories, and is limited,

sometimes absent, on coasts with high visitation where land managers are worried about

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accidental poisoning of dogs. This is a double whammy for the birds where dog owners

who ignore poison signage are indirectly influencing the option of fox control.

Another common deflection of responsibility by beach users is to blame magpies and

other avian predators for the conservation status of Hooded Plovers. Avian predators are

an issue at some sites. Here we can highlight that magpies and ravens are probably

more of a threat now than they ever were due to residents feeding them, litter on

beaches, and people disturbing the birds and opening up opportunities for avian

predators to attack the chicks or take the eggs. As you'd be aware as wardens, you're

attention is constantly divided between the different oncoming threats that approach

from all directions. You could even emphasize this to the public, getting them to think

from the point of view of the birds.

I think that when members of the public try to favour one threat over another, and

typically one that they personally aren’t responsible for, we have to make the point that

our aim is to reduce the damage that we as people are doing to coastal habitats and to

the birds. Foxes and avian predators are on our radar and are being tackled. However,

threats that we as people have more direct control over and can easily minimise are the

first ones to tackle in order to balance the odds in favour of the birds: leashing our dogs,

keeping clear of fenced areas, binning litter, etc.

How much of a threat do you think cats pose?

Jon Fallaw revealed that on Phillip Island, due to the absence of foxes, cats are of major

concern and that Phillip Island Nature Parks put considerable effort into controlling cat

numbers on the island. It was noted that generally across the Victorian coast however

that cats were rarely detected on the beach or foredunes. In all 64 of Renee Mead’s

remote cameras at nests, not a single cat was detected. It should be noted however that

research by Aimie Cribbin using fake nests that were situated further back into the dunes

and nearer to vegetation, did detect a few cats. This may suggest that habitat

partitioning occurs, perhaps fox and dog use of the lower beach/foredune keeps cat use

confined to the landward side of the dune. Deborah Furbank added that on the Yorke

Peninsula, cat prints are noticeable on the beach/dunes, particularly in some areas where

there are townships or beach shacks in the dunes. Once again, the influence of a given

threat is dependent on the site and on the presence of other threats, some act to

suppress others and in their absence, that threat becomes more severe.

How bad are coastal weeds and should this be as much of a concern as direct impacts

like disturbance and predation?

Deborah Furbank explained that several large scale projects to control beach daisy along

the Yorke Peninsula coastline were a priority for the NRM as this would ensure habitat

resilience over time and mean that we are not losing suitable habitat for nesting hoodies

and other beach-nesters.

Grainne added that we need to conserve the birds AND their habitats. We can’t have one

without the other. Marram grass, sea-wheat grass and sea spurge are all incredibly

damaging weeds to shorebird habitat. Marram was actually planted in the dunes to

stabilise sand movement which has major implications for natural beach and dune

morphology and for the ability of dunes and beaches to replenish and retreat. Tackling

the extent of weed invasions would require significant investment from NRM/CMAs and

from land managers. In the meantime, we are targeting sections of beach where we can

remove weeds to reopen the dunes and make these available for nesting. This includes

trials to eradicate Marram grass from parts of Killarney beach and working with

Conservation Volunteers Australia to remove sea spurge from Wilsons Promontory.

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How many birds will be banded for research?

Grainne answered this question with stating the aims of the banding program are to

overcome current knowledge gaps, particularly around juvenile mortality rates and

dispersal. As you can imagine getting a decent sample size of juveniles is a challenge due

to so few chicks surviving to fledge each season. We aim to flag a sample of chicks from

different parts of the coastline to explore dispersal routes, sex ratios (via Dan Lees PhD

study) and differential survival. We also can then look at new partnerships that form and

the site and partner fidelity shown in younger birds. Added to this, we are building our

samples of genetic material from a number of birds from different regions for a

population genetics study. Another priority has been to recapture birds that were colour-

banded in the 1990s by Mike Weston that have lost one or more of their colour bands, to

find out their identity, replace bands with a single engraved leg flag, and get a better

understanding of longevity (as these birds are now between 13-21 years old!!).

What are the benefits for local councils in supporting Hooded Plover conservation?

Jeanette Spittle answered this question by highlighting that protection of threatened

species falls within the responsibilities of a land manager and that City of Greater

Geelong are committed to conservation of the Hooded Plover. Jeanette spoke of the

response of the Mayor, the CEO and departments beyond the environmental team within

council who have been overwhelmed by the community support for this flagship species,

and who recognise the value of this project in not only fulfilling a council responsibility

(protection of a local threatened species) but also in building close connections to

volunteers and to the broader community.

Deborah Furbank added that when working with councils, it is useful to think more

broadly than just the environment department, and that sometimes making inroads into

other departments can be fruitful for developing the support of council for beach-nesting

bird conservation.

Field trips

Field trips to a range of local coastal areas ran in the afternoon to provide insights into

the area’s coastal habitats, threats and wildlife, as well as exposure to on-ground

managements that have been implemented. The areas included: London Bridge and

Portsea Surf Beach led by Friends of the Hooded Plover Mornington Peninsula to show

Hooded Plover habitat, threats, site management and an opportunity to read Hooded

Plover leg flags. The field trips within Point Nepean National Park, Gunners to Fort

Nepean, and Observatory Point were focused on the local flora and fauna and the

historical importance of the area. These were led by a Friends of the Hooded Plover

Mornington Peninsula and Southern Peninsula Indigenous Flora and Fauna Association

(SPIFFA) members.

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Day 2 Practical Workshops and Field Trips:

A selection of workshops were offered to participants, aimed at building capacity and

increasing the skill set of volunteers and land managers. Representatives of each coastal

region attended as ambassadors and will take these learnings back to their respective

areas to use the new skills and ideas to share among their group and adapt to their local

area. The workshops offered were on:

Beach-nesting bird behaviour and ecology (primarily for new participants)

Migratory shorebird identification

Wetland bird identification

Conservation advocacy – how best to write submissions to key decision makers,

points to make, and tips on best presenting your position on the topic, plus advice

about engaging the media

Education in schools – ways to approach schools and to increase awareness of

beach-nesting birds among school students

Weed and plant identification for coastal areas

Field trips were aimed at showing the local birdlife, marine and coastal habitats.

Coolart Wetlands, led by BirdLife Australia’s Mornington Peninsula Branch, gave

participants an opportunity to practice newly learned shorebird and wetland bird

identification skills.

Snorkelling was offered by Matt Reardon, 3CR presenter of ‘Out of the Blue’, and

Parks Victoria Marine Ranger, Jonathon Stevenson, to explore marine habitats and

marine life.

The St Andrews Beach and Koonya field trips were led by Friends of the Hooded

Plover Mornington Peninsula volunteers and were focused on learning more about

hooded plovers, their habitats, flocking behaviour and management history of the

local area. There were also opportunities to read leg flags through spotting scopes.

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Feedback from participants:

“Thank-you all for a terrific workshop, great choice of topics and field trips.”

“The first day was fantastic with an awesome line up of speakers.”

“Thanks for organising such a great event.”

“Thank you so much for an awesome conference. I really enjoyed the two-days.”

“I wanted to convey my thanks and congratulations for the wonderful Beach-nesting Birds

conference.”

“I enjoyed the conference very much, and so pleased to learn so much more about our beach

nesting birds.”

“I learnt a lot about the project and the dedication of the volunteers and researchers involved with

it.”

“I was amazed at the detail and thought you all put into presenters, displays, etc and the food was

awesome. Great to hear about the research projects and positive vibes coming from the threatened

species commissioner.”

Conference participants enjoying workshops in the beautiful Point Nepean setting. Photos Grainne Maguire.