Three delivery partners committed. Course materials and tools are ready. Planning with Jacobs Well EEC, REF Environmental and BIEPA is underway — first cohort target: Late July / Late July / August 2026, ahead of the September migratory return.
Register interest →For or about?
The distinction is one of posture. The “about” work is the foundation — population data, disturbance science, flyway ecology, species accounts: produced by researchers, monitoring programs, and conservation organisations working across the flyway. A Steward draws on that body of knowledge at every visit.
A Steward carries that science to the site and interprets it — making the findings of flyway research, disturbance science, and population ecology real and present for whoever is there. That is what this program trains people to do.
For the birds
The Shorebird Steward’s position — the interpreter of conservation science at the site.
- Interpreting conservation science for whoever is at the site — the family on the foreshore, the dog walker
- At the site, at the right tide, with the tools and the knowledge to read what they see
- Recording what is actually happening — not what should be
- Documenting disturbance events as they occur
- Documenting ad hoc sites as they are discovered
- Building an evidence base that can support management decisions
- Speaking from the record
Adding Pixels to the Picture, visit by visit.
The foundation
The “about” work — essential, and what Steward training is built on.
- Population data and trend analysis from AWSG, QWSG, BirdLife Australia
- Disturbance science and FID research from field studies across the flyway
- Flyway ecology and staging site science from the EAAF Partnership
- Species accounts, identification data, and conservation status assessments
- Long-term monitoring programs tracking change at the flyway scale
- The science of tidal ecology, energy budgets, and shorebird behaviour
Two threads. One initiative.
For Shorebirds is the practitioner thread of Conversations With Birds — a personal initiative of Borys Daniljchenko, Environmental Educator (Retired), based at Moreton Bay, Quandamooka Country. The two threads are complementary and connected, not competing.
Conversations With Birds
The public thread. Stories, science, emotional connection, and the pathway from curiosity to caring. Gazza the Godwit, Karrick the Robin, the Gazza Chronicles, the Junior Steward pathway. The Science to Kin journey.
For Shorebirds
The practitioner thread. Training, tools, field experience, and the knowledge-building mission of Mapping the Mudflats. For the people who want to move from connection to action — at the site, in the field, for the birds.
Rooted in 1975
This program’s approach has its foundation in 1975, when Borys Daniljchenko helped establish Queensland's first purpose-built field study centre at Jacobs Well — the same site that is now a delivery partner for the Shorebird Steward Program.
That centre was built on a conviction that still drives this work: that direct field experience, in the right place, with the right framing, changes how people relate to the natural world in ways that classroom learning cannot replicate.
For Shorebirds applies that conviction to the decline of migratory shorebird populations at critical staging and non-breeding sites — Moreton Bay among them.
Queensland's first purpose-built field study centre. Now a delivery partner for the Shorebird Steward Program.
The field site. Internationally significant shorebird habitat. Flyway staging area for species including Bar-tailed Godwit, Far Eastern Curlew and Red-necked Stint.
East Asian–Australasian Flyway. 50 million+ birds. 22 countries. One of the world's great migratory routes — and one of the most threatened.
"We know all we need to protect them. We just need to Act."For Shorebirds · Shorebird Steward Program
Find out how to become a Steward
The program is open to community groups, educational institutions and individuals. All course materials are delivered digitally. Field experience is delivered at the bay through our partners.