Two little heads poked out above the sand dunes on Bruny Island. Rounded shapes, with sooty black heads, two little birds watching the beach-goers passing by, between undulating sand and a shoreline washed with waves.
The hooded plovers had made an appearance just as I knew they would. Unlike many other beaches in south-east Australia, the tiny, largely white waders can always been seen among the dunes at the back of the beach, or hidden among wrack on the sands.
By coincidence, just 10 minutes before spotting the plovers I had attended a lecture in the village hall at Adventure Bay by the very man who has for nearly four decades been a beach-nesting birds champion, Eric Woehler.
Dr Woehler, in his talk at the Bruny Bird Festival earlier this year, explained how Tasmania and its largely pristine coastline was important for the world population of not just the hooded plover but a bigger and more dramatic shorebird, the pied oystercatcher.
Tasmania had in fact become a vital refuge for these two species endemic to Australia, whose populations were in freefall on the mainland.
With hooded plovers, there are a mere 3000 left nationally, 50 per cent in Tasmania. Of the 12,000 oystercatchers, 30 percent of the population resides in Tasmania.
Although figures for both species might appear high, the birds have been declining at such a fast rate this century, they could soon reach critical levels. It’s worth noting that the pied oystercatcher was once common in New South Wales, and now is considered a critically endangered species at state level.
The monitoring of Tasmanian resident shorebirds started in the 1980s with a program that scientists taking part, including Dr Woehler, thought would last five years.
It’s still going strong and in the intervening years the scientist says that he has assessed every accessible beach in Tasmania, including many on the Bass Strait islands.
“It’s been a mammoth task,” he said, “considering Tasmania’s coastline is longer than that of Victoria and New South Wales combined. Eight per cent of Australia’s coastline in total.”
Dr Woehler, of the Australasian Seabird Group, said that comprehensive data compiled by teams of volunteers now listed 9000 nests, territories and colonies on 460 sandy beaches.
The surveys have also included two other species of beach-nesting birds, fairy and little terns which are both listed as critically endangered in Tasmania.
The chief threats to these birds are disturbance by beach-goers and particularly their dogs. Four-wheel-drive vehicles driven along beaches are also a menace, along with to a lesser degree horse riders.
“Every time I turn on TV, I see advertisements for utes, the vehicles thrashing along beaches, throwing up spray,“ Dr Woehler said. “If you buy a 4WD the first thing you want to do is drive it through the surf. The shorebirds nesting on beaches pay a heavy price.”