World Migratory Bird Day

Celebrate our migratory birds on 11 October

Plenty of Australia’s birds migrate. Some of them are small, like Silvereyes, Grey Fantails and Welcome Swallows, while others are larger, such as Eastern Koels, Pied Imperial-Pigeons and Eastern Curlews, but they all undertake some form of regular seasonal movements. Many species, ranging from Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes and Fairy Martins to White-browed Woodswallows and Rainbow Bee-eaters, fly from southern Australia to northern climes and then back again, while others, like Gang-gang Cockatoos, Flame Robins and King-Parrots, fly from the mountains down towards the coast; still others, such as Orange-bellied and Swift Parrots and Grey Fantails, regularly migrate across Bass Strait, and some, including Short-tailed Shearwaters and most of our shorebirds – curlews, sandpipers, godwits, stints and the like –migrate between Australia and the Northern Hemisphere, some covering many thousands of kilometres at a time.

World Migratory Bird Day on October 11 each year is a day not only to celebrate the wonder of Australia’s many migratory birds, but also to reflect on how they’re faring.

The most celebrated of Australia’s migratory birds are the shorebirds, but sadly, many migratory shorebirds are not faring well. In recent years, Curlew Sandpipers, Great Knots and Eastern Curlews have all been added to the Australia’s list of threatened species in recent years – all at the level of Critically Endangered, just a step away from extinction. Add to this the Red Knot and Lesser Sand Plover, which are classified as Endangered, and you’ll see that the future of Australia’s shorebirds hangs in the balance.

The main threat to these species is the loss of habitat along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway – the route they use to migrate to Australia from their breeding grounds in the Siberian tundra (and back again), travelling up to 13,000 kilometres each way. This destruction is most extensive on the shores of the Yellow Sea – the key stopover sites where the birds ‘refuel’ during their arduous journey – which are being destroyed by ‘reclamation’ of the mudflats for industry.

But habitat destruction isn’t just something that’s happening somewhere else, it’s happening here in Australia too. Each mudflat that is lost drives threatened migratory shorebirds closer to extinction. We must ensure that shorebird-friendly habitats are available when these migratory birds visit Australia.

It’s clear that Australia’s migratory birds need our help to survive and prosper, and at BirdLife Australia we’re working hard to make that a reality.