Hedland a hub for shore birds

Every year some of the world’s most impressive endurance athletes visit our shores and yet few Hedland residents will even notice.

Bar-tailed godwits are a species of wader bird known for migrating vast distances from Australia and New Zealand to China, Siberia and even Alaska.

Scientists GPS-tracked one female in 2007 flying non-stop for 11,680km on a journey from western Alaska to New Zealand’s North Island.

Yet Godwits also join as many as 20,000 migrating shorebirds stopping by Hedland’s shorelines each migrating season, according to visiting BirdLife WA chairman Mike Bamford.

Those numbers multiply into the hundreds of thousands further up the coast at 80 Mile Beach.

To successfully reach their northern hemisphere breeding grounds, the shorebirds must spend long enough in North West WA to pack on the pounds.

“They almost double in bodyweight — godwits put on about 70 per cent of their bodyweight in fat, ” Dr Bamford said, during his recent visit to 4 Mile Beach.

“All the organs and essential muscles get (partially) absorbed and contract in size so they can do this super effort.”

The shorebirds are also noteworthy for more than just their impressive feats of endurance and navigation.

Dr Bamford said they were key links in the food chains of the many coastal ecosystems they visit around the world.

Yet destruction to many of these habitats by human development, particularly in Asia, has led to a decline in the populations of many species.

Concern over the decline gave rise to the Shorebird 2020 program in which volunteers around Australia have been monitoring shorebirds to learn more about their habitats and why their populations are declining.

Dr Bamford and his colleague, Shorebirds 2020 WA co-ordinator Bruce Greatwitch, hope Hedland can become another important monitoring site.

The duo led a two-day workshop to teach locals methods for monitoring the birds.

Care For Hedland co-ordinator Melissa Wood said the session had been inspiring.

She said Care For Hedland would look to soon begin monthly or bi-monthly monitoring of visiting shorebirds in a manner similar to the environmental group’s monitoring work around flatback turtles.

Keen volunteers should contact Care For Hedland for more information.