Sea and Shore Birds Research

Sea Birds
Shore Birds

Sea birds:
Seabirds are birds that spend much of their lives, outside the breeding season at least, at sea. Whilst the seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behavior and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. Some seabird species, such as the albatrosses and petrels are truly pelagic, breeding on sea cliffs and small islands, and wintering on the open ocean. They are totally dependent on the sea for food. Other species such as the auks and cormorants tend to be more coastal. Some seabird species are marine for only part of the year, nesting inland in marshes and on lakes. Seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in those young that they do have. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few dozen birds to many millions. They are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds and humans have a long history together; they have provided food to hunters, guided fishermen to fishing stocks and sailors to land. Many species are currently threatened by human activities, and conservation efforts are underway to preserve them.

Shore birds:
Migratory shorebirds are water birds that experience summer all year round by flying between the northern and southern hemispheres. They breed at wetlands in the Northern Hemisphere in June and July. They then migrate to wetlands in the Southern Hemisphere where they are found feeding in shallow water at coastal and inland wetlands from September to April each year. At least 2 million migratory shorebirds visit Australia each year during our summer. The principal route along which migratory shorebirds travel to Australia is the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. This stretches from Siberia, through East Asia down to Australia and New Zealand. Along the flyway is a network of wetlands that the birds visit to refuel. There are at least 36 species of migratory shorebirds that visit Australian wetlands on an annual basis. In addition, there are 16 species that occasionally visit Australia, and another 15 species — numbering at least 1.1 million birds — that live in Australia. There are hundreds of thousands of migratory shorebirds that arrive and inhabit wetlands of Western Australia’s north- and south-west feed mostly on the invertebrates that inhabit shallow water in drying wetlands, tidal flats and salt marshes. The most common birds include the red-necked stint, curlew sandpiper, sharp-tailed sandpiper, bar-tailed godwit and greenshank.