A Steward-led pilot study
The Kakadu Beach Constructed Roost (KBR) was built in 2002 by a partnership between the Queensland Wader Study Group and the developer of Pacific Harbour, replacing Dux Creek which was lost to development. It now supports a regular high-tide community of Bar-tailed Godwit, Eastern Curlew, Whimbrel, Great Knot, Red Knot and other open-ground waders. DuskWatch asks a different question of the same roost: does it function as an overnight roost for Terek Sandpiper, a species that prefers mangroves at the bay scale and is rarely counted at KBR in the daytime?
The methodology adapts the Whimbrel nocturnal-roost protocol developed by Sanders, Handmaker, Johnson and Senner (2021) for Deveaux Bank, South Carolina, with extensions drawn from the wider behavioural-roost literature: per-disturbance variables from Lilleyman et al. (2016) at Darwin Harbour, posture-state scoring from Ryeland et al. (2017, 2019), and pressure-trend recording to test whether arrival is anticipatory ahead of foul weather or reactive once the mangrove fringe is already getting hit.
DuskWatch operates at the Steward tier, alongside FlagWatch, with sessions guided by Borys Daniljchenko or other team leaders.
Anticipatory, reactive, or absent
Fuller, Clemens, Woodworth, Moffitt, Steven and Simmons (2021), in their bay-wide assessment for Healthy Land and Water, describe Terek Sandpiper at Moreton Bay as a mangrove-roosting species that is almost certainly under-counted because mangrove roosts are difficult for surveyors to access:
Terek Sandpipers roost in mangroves, which are difficult to access, and not frequently counted by Queensland Wader Study Group surveyors. Fuller et al. 2021, p. 36
Site-specific records of Terek at KBR itself are scarce. The most direct observations are sunset arrivals in larger numbers during bad weather (November 2021 and December 2022). Whether the constructed roost is used by Terek overnight in normal weather has not been tested. The question is whether KBR serves the species only as a foul-weather refuge while Terek otherwise roost in the surrounding mangrove fringe of Pumicestone Passage.
If the KBR mangrove end-zones hold an overnight Terek roost in normal conditions, their condition matters and they should be specifically managed. If they are used only as a foul-weather refuge, that is also worth knowing for management purposes.
Terek Sandpiper at Kakadu Beach
Terek Sandpiper (Xenus cinereus) is a 22–25 cm migratory shorebird with a long upcurved bill (dark with yellow or orange base) and bright orange legs. The species breeds in the boreal taiga of northern Eurasia and migrates south to non-breeding grounds across northern and eastern Australia. The total East Asian-Australasian Flyway population is estimated at around 50,000 birds (Wetlands International 2012). Bay-wide maximum at Moreton Bay is 691 birds (Milton 2008). Pumicestone Passage held internationally important numbers (more than 500) on at least one occasion before 2009. The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020 lists the species as Vulnerable.
Kakadu Beach Constructed Roost (CoMB ROOST_CODE: KKBC; centroid −27.04992, 153.13421) sits on the western shore of Bribie Island. The geometry follows Lawler's 1995 design specifications: a 1:50 slope to the foreshore, vegetation kept under 80 mm in height, a minimum area of 1,400–1,500 m² of open ground, and 40 m mangrove end-zones at the northern and southern ends. The 40 m mangrove end-zones are the only mangrove habitat within the roost footprint, and the most likely Terek-habitable zone if the species uses KBR overnight at all.
The Steward's workflow
Each dusk visit to KBR follows the same five-step pattern. The full protocol with field-by-field detail sits at /duskwatch/protocol.
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Plan the date
High tide within 125 minutes of civil twilight, ideally 30–60 minutes apart. Priority for dates within 2–3 days of full moon, which allows arrival counting to continue past civil twilight by moonlight. Confirm the leader-guided slot for the session.
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Pull the conditions before you leave
BoM Caloundra Aero or Brisbane Aero pressure now, six hours ago, and 24 hours ago. Sunset and civil twilight times for Sandstone Point. High tide time and height from Caloundra Bar. The pressure trend is what tells the anticipatory-versus-reactive story.
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Arrive 60 minutes before sunset
Set up at a fixed observation point from which the open central area of KBR and at least one of the mangrove end-zones is visible. Record start time, conditions and position. Two-volunteer minimum for sessions running past civil twilight.
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Run the four-part recording form
Session header (date, position, twilight times, tide, moon, wind, pressure trends), 30-minute time-block arrival counts (direction, altitude, flight pattern, species, flock size, landing zone), three timed behaviour scans at sunset, civil twilight and civil twilight +30 min, and an event-driven disturbance log. Flag observations are logged during the scan window when birds are settled and scope-readable.
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Submit the session
Records queue to the device and sync to the For Shorebirds Sheet when the device next has connectivity. Flag resightings are forwarded to BirdMark separately, the EAAF colour-marked wader portal, and to QWSG for Queensland records.
Where DuskWatch fits
DuskWatch sits alongside ShorelineWatch and FlagWatch in the Steward toolset. It runs in parallel rather than as a stage in the Reader / Interpreter / Ambassador practice ladder. The literacy a Steward builds through ShorelineWatch and FlagWatch is what makes DuskWatch sessions usable: tide and substrate awareness, species identification at distance, scope-reading of leg flags, disturbance recognition.
The Reader's literacy
You can't run a structured dusk session without the situational awareness a Reader builds first. Tide window, substrate, flock behaviour, disturbance — all the same skills, applied to a focused species at a focused site at a specific window of light.
The Interpreter's tool
Flag-marked Terek detected during a DuskWatch behaviour scan are read with the same scope skill FlagWatch builds. Resightings flow to BirdMark independently of the DuskWatch record. Two streams, same sighting.
Three working hypotheses
The pilot is structured around three paired questions, in increasing order of specificity. All three are testable with a single season of data, and all three can be wrong. The pilot is set up to find out which.
A · Does KBR function as an overnight Terek roost in normal weather?
If most Terek using Pumicestone Passage are in the broader mangrove fringe rather than at the constructed roost — with the KBR mangrove end-zones holding only a small overnight cohort, and the open central area holding birds only on foul-weather nights — the management implication is that Terek roost provision in Pumicestone Passage is a mangrove-fringe issue rather than a constructed-roost issue.
B · What is the dusk arrival pattern, and how does it compare to the published Whimbrel curve?
If the Sanders and Handmaker (2021) Whimbrel pattern at Deveaux Bank holds — arrivals concentrated in the 30-minute window straddling civil twilight, with a long tail counted only on full-moon nights — the rate of late-arrival activity will tell us whether a single-observer KBR session captures the bulk of the dusk movement or systematically misses a moonlit-tail component.
C · What is the disturbance pattern, and what is its energy cost?
The Lilleyman et al. (2016) coefficient at Darwin Harbour roosts: 10 alarm flights per day raised daily energy expenditure by 4.5–4.7% in knot-sized species. Applying this to the season's disturbance log gives BIEPA, the BIEPA Shorebird Working Group, and the City of Moreton Bay a quantitative anchor for the disturbance management discussion at this site.
Who is involved
DuskWatch is delivered in collaboration with the BIEPA Shorebird Working Group, Jacobs Well Environmental Education Centre, and REF Environmental. Dr Micha Jackson (CSIRO) is approached as a proposed scientific collaborator with possible co-authorship if a paper results.
The Queensland Wader Study Group, the City of Moreton Bay, and Birds Queensland are briefed before fieldwork begins, with an offer to share the protocol and data once the pilot has run. Birds Queensland endorsement will be sought as appropriate.
Trained Stewards in the existing For Shorebirds cohort run the sessions, drawn from the cohort with a session-specific top-up training before the season opens. Sessions are guided by the project lead or other team leaders with similar credentials.
For Stewards in the cohort
If you're an enrolled Steward, the session form is open. New to the cohort? The Shorebird Steward Program is the way in.