The migratory and resident shorebird species a Steward needs to recognise, understand, and document. A name is just a label. What each species needs, why it is here, and what threatens it is a different body of knowledge — and that is what this program delivers.
Eight shorebird species are confirmed extinct. These are not future losses. They are past ones. The dates below are the last time a living individual was recorded. After that date — nothing. A different species appears each time this page is opened.
One species. One living population. Fewer than 500 individuals on the planet. What follows — the Critically Endangered, the Endangered, the Vulnerable — is what the road before this point looks like. This is the road's end.
Critically Endangered
EAAF Flyway Species · ~490 adults
Three species — each one dependent on habitat that is disappearing. Their presence at Moreton Bay is an opportunity and a responsibility.
Critically Endangered
Critically Endangered
Critically Endangered
Three further species under serious flyway pressure. Each one requires the same field attention as the Critically Endangered species.
Endangered
Endangered
Endangered
Species under increasing pressure — not yet in crisis, but the trend lines are moving in the wrong direction.
Vulnerable
Vulnerable
Vulnerable
Vulnerable
Near Threatened
Regular visitors using Moreton Bay as a non-breeding staging site. Their presence, numbers, and behaviour are the baseline against which change is measured.
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Migratory
Near Threatened
Least Concern
Present year-round. Breeding on open beaches and intertidal zones alongside migratory visitors. Not second-class citizens — they share the same habitat under equal and often overlooked pressure.
Resident · Breeding
Resident · Breeding
Resident
Resident
Resident · Breeding
Resident · Breeding
Resident · Breeding
Resident · Breeding
Resident · Nomadic
Resident · Breeding
The Hooded Plover's nesting territory is the same strip of beach used by people, dogs, horses, and vehicles. Eggs incubate in a shallow scrape just above the high tide line for 28 days. The nest is invisible to anyone not looking for it. A single disturbance event during incubation on a warm day can raise egg temperature past the point of viability within minutes.
Introduced foxes are the primary predator of eggs and chicks on southern beaches. Silver Gulls — whose populations have expanded enormously in association with human food waste — take eggs and newly-hatched chicks with regularity. Corvids add further pressure. The nesting pair has no structural defence against any of these: the nest is open ground.
In the eastern population, chick survival to fledging is consistently poor. Monitoring in NSW and Victoria has shown breeding seasons where no chicks survived on surveyed beaches. The adult birds are long-lived and pair-faithful — which can mask the absence of recruitment until the population is already in sharp decline.
At Moreton Bay, where the Hooded Plover is at the northern edge of its range and occurrence is rare, any confirmed sighting during the breeding season (August–January) is immediately worth recording and reporting to BirdLife Australia's Shorebird Recovery Program. The FID for a bird on an active nest is extremely short — approach within 30 metres risks nest desertion.
The Asian Dowitcher stages on Yellow Sea tidal flats on the northbound migration, using the same sites as Bar-tailed Godwit, Far Eastern Curlew and Great Knot. The same reclamation that is driving those species into decline is working on this one — with less documentation and less international attention, partly because the species is harder to survey and partly because its wintering grounds in Myanmar and Bangladesh are less well-monitored than Australian sites.
On wintering grounds in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, shorebird trapping continues despite bilateral agreements. The Asian Dowitcher's larger size relative to stints and sandpipers makes it a more conspicuous target. Conservation work in these countries — engaging local communities in protection — mirrors the approach being used for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and is beginning to show results.
Population estimates for the Asian Dowitcher carry wide uncertainty. The species is genuinely rare, but it is also easily overlooked in mixed godwit and curlew assemblages at distance. Every confirmed count at a site like Moreton Bay adds to a dataset that is thin in Australia. A Steward who identifies one is not just making a record for their own log — they are contributing to the global picture.
Any Asian Dowitcher sighting at Moreton Bay should be recorded in Shoreline Watch with full details: species, count, associated species, GPS, tidal state, date and time. It should also be reported directly to QWSG. The feeding action — rapid vertical probing, straight bill driven deep into soft mud — is the key field distinction from Bar-tailed Godwit, which probes at a shallower angle. Leg colour (dark grey-black) and bill base (dark, not pink) confirm identification.
The tail-bobbing action of the Common Sandpiper is not occasional or contextual. It is continuous — the bird bobs as it feeds, bobs as it stands, bobs as it watches you. No other sandpiper in the Moreton Bay assemblage bobs in this way with this frequency. Combined with the stiff, bowed-wing flight low over water — alternating rapid wingbeats with short glides — the species is identifiable at distance before the field marks are visible.
The Common Sandpiper works the edges that the mudflat specialists ignore: rocky shore margins, mangrove roots, seawall base, jetty pilings, the margins of freshwater drains where they meet tidal water. It is rarely on open mudflat. At Moreton Bay sites it is most often found singly at the structural edges of the site — the places a Steward passes through rather than stands at. Worth a deliberate look on every visit.
The Common Sandpiper breeds across temperate and boreal Eurasia from Britain to Kamchatka and migrates along multiple flyways to Africa, India and Australasia. Its presence at Moreton Bay is a reminder that the EAAF is not the only flyway operating simultaneously. This individual bird may have flown from Siberia or Central Asia. Least Concern today; it uses the same Yellow Sea and Southeast Asian stopovers as species that are not.
Recording Common Sandpiper presence — site, count (usually one), habitat (rocky margin, seawall, mangrove edge), date and tidal state — adds to the broader species inventory for each Moreton Bay site. Its solitary habit means it is genuinely undercounted in shorebird surveys focused on open mudflat. A Shoreline Watch entry for a single Common Sandpiper at a jetty base is a real data point.
The Bush Stone-curlew is not a shorebird in the strict sense, but it is a Charadriiform — related by deep evolutionary descent to the waders and plovers it occasionally shares habitat with. Its enormous yellow eyes are adapted for nocturnal hunting: insects, lizards, crabs and invertebrates taken in the dark from the ground. By day it freezes, elongates its neck, and tilts its bill slightly upward — a posture that breaks its silhouette and renders it nearly invisible against any background it chooses to stand against. This is not learned behaviour. It is millions of years old.
In Queensland, the Bush Stone-curlew remains common in urban parks, foreshores and coastal woodland. Its range once extended across most of southern Australia. That has contracted by approximately 90%, driven primarily by red fox predation of eggs, chicks and sitting adults. The species nests on bare ground — a simple scrape — with no structural protection. In the south, where fox populations are dense, breeding success has been near zero for decades in many areas.
Common in urban parks and foreshore areas around Moreton Bay — Centenary Lakes Cairns to the north, Brisbane parklands, Minjerribah — the Bush Stone-curlew is under localised pressure from dogs and vehicle traffic. Nest sites are unprotected. Pairs are site-faithful and will attempt to nest year after year in the same location. A pair nesting at a regularly disturbed site has almost no breeding success.
Bush Stone-curlews at Moreton Bay shorebird sites are worth recording — their presence documents habitat quality for a broader suite of species than the migratory shorebirds alone. If a pair is known to nest at a site, noting nest location, access routes, and disturbance events builds a case for local management intervention. The species responds poorly to dog disturbance at the nest — the adult sits tight and then abandons, often within a short disturbance window.
The Black-fronted Dotterel occupies the freshwater and low-salinity margins of coastal wetlands — the places where a stormwater drain meets an estuary, where a shallow pool forms behind the mangrove fringe, where a small creek crosses the intertidal zone. It feeds by sight, running and pausing to pick invertebrates from the surface and shallow water. It does not probe. It does not wade into depth. It works the margins that the mudflat species walk past.
Nests are a simple scrape lined with plant material, placed on bare ground or gravel near water. Like the Hooded Plover and the Red-capped Plover, the Black-fronted Dotterel relies on cryptic coloured eggs and an incubating adult that sits very tight. Predation by cats and foxes is the primary threat to nesting success. Wetland drainage eliminates habitat entirely — this species has no alternative to freshwater-adjacent ground.
Standard shorebird monitoring at Moreton Bay roost sites focuses on open intertidal mudflat at high tide — the Black-fronted Dotterel is almost never there. It occurs at the freshwater edges of the same sites, or at nearby wetland margins that are not counted in QWSG roost surveys. Recording it extends the species inventory of a site and documents habitat quality for a broader assemblage.
At Moreton Bay sites that include freshwater wetland margins — Hays Inlet, Tinchi Tamba, parts of Toondah — the Black-fronted Dotterel is worth a deliberate scan of the freshwater edges before and after the main mudflat survey. Recording its presence, count and location builds a more complete picture of site ecological character than mudflat-only counts provide.
The Pied Stilt's legs are proportionally the longest of any Australian bird relative to body size. They allow it to wade into water far deeper than any godwit or curlew can reach, picking invertebrates from the water column and from soft sediment in depths that exclude every other wader at the site. At Moreton Bay it uses open mudflat, shallow channels, saltmarsh pools and freshwater wetlands — a generalist that occupies the full vertical range of the intertidal zone.
The Pied Stilt's loud, persistent alarm call when disturbed — a high repeated yapping — functions as an alert for every other species at a mixed roost. At Kakadu Beach and Toorbul, if stilts flush, godwits and curlews look up. Recording whether stilts were alarmed before a roost disturbance event adds context to the record that the flush of migratory species cannot provide on its own.
The Pied Stilt nests on bare ground close to water — often a simple scrape on a saltmarsh bank or a small rise in the intertidal zone. Nests are vulnerable to tidal wash-over at king tides, to fox and cat predation, and to trampling. The adults are aggressive in nest defence, dive-bombing approach from considerable distance, but cannot prevent physical disturbance of the eggs.
The Pied Stilt is the canary of a mixed roost. Recording its alarm state — feeding quietly, standing alert, flushed and calling — before and after a disturbance event gives the roost monitoring record a behavioural baseline that flock count alone does not provide. A flush of Pied Stilts 10 minutes before a godwit roost disperses tells you something about the disturbance sequence.
The bill of the Red-necked Avocet curves upward, unlike the downward curve of the curlews and godwits or the straight probing bills of the stints. It is a sweeping bill — moved rapidly side-to-side through shallow water just at the surface, detecting invertebrates by touch. The bird walks steadily forward, sweeping as it goes, feeding in a manner no other shorebird at Moreton Bay uses. Like the Spoon-billed Sandpiper on this page, the bill shape defines the ecological niche and the feeding technique simultaneously.
The Red-necked Avocet is not migratory in the EAAF sense — it does not breed in the Arctic and winter in Australia. It breeds inland when rainfall creates suitable wetlands, and moves to coastal sites when inland conditions dry. Its presence at Moreton Bay is therefore variable and hard to predict. Numbers can shift dramatically between seasons. Recording it — including flock size and site location — contributes to understanding of its population distribution across the coast.
The avocet needs shallow, open water — saltpan, estuarine lagoon, tidal flat at the right depth. Too deep and the sweep-feeding cannot reach the bottom. Too exposed at low tide and the sediment dries out. At Moreton Bay it uses the shallow margins of tidal flats and constructed wetlands — including, occasionally, the artificial lagoon at the Kakadu Beach constructed roost where water depth is managed.
Red-necked Avocet presence at Moreton Bay sites is always worth recording with flock size and site location. Its sweep-feeding technique is immediately distinguishable from every other species on the flat — a Steward who spots the side-to-side bill action has made an identification without needing to see the chestnut head. Reporting large flocks to QWSG contributes to coastal distribution monitoring for a species whose total numbers and seasonal movements are not precisely known.
The Red-kneed Dotterel occupies shallow freshwater wetlands, flooded grasslands, saltmarsh edges and estuarine margins with emergent vegetation. It feeds by running across exposed mud and shallow water, picking invertebrates by sight — the same run-and-pause technique as other plovers, but at wetland edges rather than open intertidal flat. At Moreton Bay it uses the inland wetland fringes of sites that extend beyond the tidal zone: Tinchi Tamba, Hays Inlet, the freshwater margins behind mangrove fringe.
The red knee joint — a splash of reddish-orange at the leg joint visible when the bird is stationary — gives this species its name. In the field it is not always obvious, particularly when the bird is moving. The more reliable field marks are the combination of black hood with white throat (no other Australian dotterel has this combination), and the chestnut-brown flanks visible in flight. The bill is short, straight and black. Legs are greenish-grey.
Nests on bare ground or shallow scrape at wetland edges, often concealed in sparse vegetation. Eggs are cryptically marked. Both parents incubate. Cat and fox predation, wetland drainage and water level manipulation all affect breeding success. The species is adaptable to modified wetlands — rice paddies, sewage treatment ponds, constructed wetlands — but requires some fringe vegetation and stable water levels during the breeding period.
Recording Red-kneed Dotterel at Moreton Bay sites extends the species inventory beyond the mudflat assemblage and documents the freshwater component of site ecological character. It is often present at the same sites as Black-fronted Dotterel — both can occur at the freshwater margins that a mudflat-only survey misses. Noting habitat type (freshwater pool, saltmarsh edge, mangrove fringe drain) adds value to any record.
The spatulate bill of Calidris pygmaea has no equivalent among living birds. It sweeps side-to-side through shallow water and mud, detecting invertebrates by touch and by the pressure changes its distinctive tip creates. This bill shape evolved over millions of years. It is shared by no other wader, no other shorebird family, nothing. When this species goes, the bill goes with it — an irreplaceable evolutionary solution to a problem that will never be solved again in the same way.
The Spoon-billed Sandpiper breeds on coastal tundra in Chukotka and the Bering Sea region of northeast Siberia. Its migration takes it south through the Yellow Sea, the Chinese coast, and into Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand for the non-breeding season. It uses the same staging sites, the same tidal flats, and faces the same reclamation and hunting pressure as the Far Eastern Curlew, the Great Knot, and the Bar-tailed Godwit on this page. The difference is that it arrived at the edge of extinction first, and in smaller numbers. There were never many of them. The margin for error was always smaller.
In November 2011, thirteen Spoon-billed Sandpipers arrived at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire — hatched from eggs collected in remote northeast Russian tundra, quarantined for 60 days at Moscow Zoo, and flown 8,000 km to the UK. A second expedition in 2012 added 17 more. The purpose was unambiguous: a captive ark as last resort against extinction. For eight years, the flock laid eggs that failed to hatch. What finally worked was artificial day-length simulation — recreating the photoperiod changes the birds experience on their wild migration, from Arctic summer to Asian winter. In 2019, two chicks hatched and were raised to adulthood. The first Spoon-billed Sandpipers ever bred in captivity. By 2024, the Conservation Breeding Project had concluded its formal phase — two males remain at Slimbridge, their care generating knowledge for future programs. The Russia-Ukraine conflict paused headstarting operations at the Chukotka breeding grounds, though expeditions continued. Preparations for a 2025 restart were underway.
Parallel to the captive program, a headstarting technique has been running in Russia: eggs are taken from wild nests early in the season, artificially incubated under controlled conditions, and chicks released into the wild shortly after fledging. In the wild, only 3 in every 20 chicks survive to adulthood. Headstarted: 15 in 20. The technique has stabilised what had been a decline of up to 25% annually. It buys time. The permanent solution — protecting the staging and wintering habitat on which the entire flyway depends — remains incomplete.
Every species on this page shares staging and wintering habitat with the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. The tidal flat at Kakadu Beach that receives Bar-tailed Godwits from Alaska is part of the same ecological chain that the Spoon-billed Sandpiper depends on further north. When a Steward records a disturbance event, monitors roost condition, or builds the evidence base for a site management decision, they are contributing to the health of a flyway that extends from this beach to Arctic Siberia — and that the Spoon-billed Sandpiper tells us, clearly and without ambiguity, is already failing in places.
Eight shorebird species are confirmed extinct. On 10 October 2025, the IUCN officially declared the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) extinct — the first recorded global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. Last confirmed sighting: Merja Zerga, Morocco, February 1995. The treaty established to protect it was finalised four months after the last photograph was taken.
All eight extinct species are documented in the Already Gone section at the top of this page. Each one is a record, not a warning. These events are finished. The Spoon-billed Sandpiper's situation is not.
The northbound staging habitat has been reclaimed for industry and agriculture. Without adequate refuelling here, birds arrive at Alaskan breeding grounds underweight and fail to breed.
Underweight birds produce fewer chicks. Fewer fledglings reach Moreton Bay each September. Every poor Yellow Sea season compounds the next.
March–April at Moreton Bay: birds are rebuilding fat reserves for the northbound flight. A single roost flush costs 4+ hours of foraging time that cannot be recovered during this critical window.
Every disturbance event recorded in the Shoreline Watch during March–April builds the evidence base for protective management at Kakadu Beach and Toorbul. Your field records are the argument for signage, for seasonal access restrictions, for council engagement.
More dependent on Yellow Sea mudflats than almost any other flyway species. As staging habitat disappears, the population has nowhere to go. The dependency is almost total.
Feeds on deep-burrowing crabs and yabbies in mud channels. Cannot substitute sandy beaches or rocky shores. As mudflat quality drops, so does the food available at both staging and non-breeding sites.
Feeds singly or in very small groups on exposed mud. Extremely sensitive to human approach at any distance. Any disturbance event involving this species at Moreton Bay should be documented immediately.
Far Eastern Curlew disturbance events carry the highest weighted score in the RMTools. One documented event creates a data point with direct management implications — for protective signage, fencing decisions, and formal council engagement.
The entire flyway population passes through Yellow Sea tidal flats on the northbound migration. There is no alternative route. As flats disappear, there is nowhere else to refuel.
Climate change is disrupting lemming cycles on the breeding tundra. Lemming populations regulate predator pressure on nesting shorebirds. Without the cycle, breeding success becomes unpredictable year to year.
Staging habitat loss and breeding disruption are hitting simultaneously. The 80% decline in 30 years reflects both working together — a compound collapse with no single fix.
Counting Curlew Sandpipers within Red-necked Stint flocks at Moreton Bay contributes to flyway-wide population monitoring. The Shoreline Watch records counts by species — your observations from Kakadu Beach or Toorbul feed directly into the QWSG dataset.
Great Knots feed almost exclusively on bivalves at Yellow Sea staging sites. Tidal flat reclamation buries the sediment layer, eliminating the food source for the entire northbound migration.
The Yalu Jiang coastal wetland in the north Yellow Sea now hosts most of the global population during staging. Industrial development continues to encroach on this final refuge.
Great Knots often roost within Bar-tailed Godwit flocks at Kakadu Beach. Accurate species-level counts that distinguish Great Knot from Red Knot and other species are a meaningful contribution to the monitoring record that managers rely on.
The rogersi subspecies uses both Yellow Sea and NW Australian staging. Habitat pressure at multiple points on the flyway compounds the threat on this already small population.
Often roosts within Bar-tailed Godwit flocks. Any disturbance event that moves godwits also moves Red Knots — mixed-species roost events cascade across multiple threatened species simultaneously.
Moreton Bay is identified critical non-breeding habitat for this subspecies. Confirming presence, counting numbers, and documenting disturbance events adds to the evidence base for site-level protection. Your records matter at the subspecies level, not just the site level.
Like most EAAF shorebirds, dependent on Yellow Sea tidal flats for northbound staging. The short, stout bill limits foraging options — habitat quality at staging sites directly determines breeding condition.
Breeds in high-altitude grasslands and alpine zones in Central and Northeast Asia. Climate change is altering the timing and quality of these breeding grounds, adding pressure on top of staging habitat loss.
Recording Lesser Sand Plover separately from Greater Sand Plover during counts requires close attention to bill size and head profile — exactly the kind of observation that builds the identification skill the program is designed to develop.
Uses both mudflat and rocky/reef staging habitat on the flyway. Less concentrated on Yellow Sea mudflats than some species, but still affected by the broader pattern of intertidal habitat loss across East Asia.
Feeds on rocky shores and reef platforms as well as mudflats — habitat that is often heavily used by recreation. The combination of habitat and pressure makes disturbance a consistent threat.
The Grey-tailed Tattler's early arrival in September makes it a useful indicator that the season has started. Recording first sightings each year contributes to phenological monitoring — tracking whether migration timing is shifting in response to climate change.
Like the Lesser Sand Plover, the Greater Sand Plover is dependent on Yellow Sea and other flyway staging areas that are under continuous pressure from land reclamation and industrial development across East and Southeast Asia.
Breeds in arid and semi-arid zones across Central Asia and the Middle East. Breeding habitat quality is affected by climate change and increasing agricultural pressure. Pressure on both ends of the flyway is compounding.
Distinguishing Greater from Lesser Sand Plover in the field — using bill length and depth as the primary feature, supported by head profile and leg colour — is one of the more demanding identification challenges in the Moreton Bay shorebird assemblage. Getting it right is a mark of developing field skill.
In non-breeding plumage — which is what you see at Moreton Bay — the Broad-billed Sandpiper is grey-brown above and white below. It stands in the densest part of a Red-necked Stint flock, slightly hunched, slightly shorter-legged, feeding slowly. The field mark is the split supercilium: a forked white eyebrow stripe, unlike any other wader on the flat. You can stand at Kakadu Beach and look directly at one without knowing it. The bird that rewards attention. The one that will not come to you.
The sibirica subspecies breeds in taiga bogs across central and eastern Siberia, then moves south along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway to spend the non-breeding season on coastal mudflats across Southeast Asia and Australia. It passes through or stages on the same Yellow Sea tidal flats as the godwit and the curlew sandpiper. The same reclamation that is dismantling those species' populations is working on this one too — more quietly, with less documentation, but just as steadily.
The Broad-billed Sandpiper was assessed as Least Concern for decades — partly because it is hard to count, and partly because nobody was looking closely enough. The 2021 uplisting to Vulnerable reflected what the data had been suggesting for some time: a decline exceeding 30% over three generations, driven by the same staging habitat loss affecting every species in this assemblage. The difference is that the godwit had someone watching. This bird mostly did not.
Identifying a Broad-billed Sandpiper in a mixed flock at Moreton Bay — distinguishing it from the Red-necked Stints surrounding it by bill shape and the forked supercilium — is a meaningful field accomplishment. Recording it in the Shoreline Watch by species rather than noting it as "stints" is a data contribution. This species is under-recorded at Moreton Bay, partly because it is hard to see and partly because identifying it requires deliberate attention. A Steward who learns it is doing something most people at the foreshore will never do.
Nests on open beaches and reef platforms year-round. Nesting attempts are extremely sensitive to pedestrian and dog disturbance. A single disturbance can cause nest abandonment.
Typically raises only one chick per year in undisturbed conditions. Low reproductive rate means disturbance-caused failures have a disproportionate impact on local population stability.
The Beach Stone-curlew's response to disturbance is one of the clearest demonstrations of what a Steward's presence can achieve. Recording nesting activity and disturbance events at beach sites builds the case for formal dog-restriction zones and seasonal access management.
As the primary indicator species for roost monitoring, Red-necked Stint flock counts form the baseline against which disturbance impact is measured. When the flock halves between visits, something has happened at that site — and the Shoreline Watch is how you record it.
Whimbrel feeding activity indicates healthy intertidal invertebrate populations. Recording their presence provides ecological context alongside threatened species counts. Their loud alarm call also functions as an early disturbance indicator — if it rings out, something has moved the roost.
Pacific Golden Plover often roosts on higher ground with other waders at high tide — monitoring mixed-species roosts where this species is present gives a more complete picture of site usage and disturbance impact across multiple species.
Because it is relatively abundant and reliably identifiable, the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper is a useful species for building flock-counting skill before moving to more challenging identifications in mixed shorebird assemblages.
Check rocky and cobble shorelines and reef margins where Turnstones are often overlooked by observers scanning mudflats. Recording their presence at reef sites adds to the picture of total shorebird usage at Moreton Bay sites.
The Greenshank's alarm call is an auditory disturbance indicator — learn it and you have an early warning system for roost events even before the flock moves. Recording vocal alarm behaviour alongside flush events adds detail to disturbance documentation.
The Terek Sandpiper's distinctive foraging style makes it one of the easier species to identify at distance during roost monitoring. When it is foraging rather than roosting at high tide, it is a sign that the tide is still dropping — useful tide-state context for field notes.
Recording Double-banded Plover at Moreton Bay sites contributes to trans-Tasman connectivity data. This species uses both Australian and New Zealand sites across its annual cycle — your records connect to a broader monitoring picture.
Grey Plover at Moreton Bay is noteworthy enough to record carefully — it is not a species expected on every visit. Documenting location, numbers, and behaviour adds to the long-term picture of species occurrence at Moreton Bay sites.
Sanderling are most often found on ocean-facing surf beaches rather than mudflats — if your monitoring site includes ocean beach habitat, check the tide line for this species. Their presence indicates healthy swash-zone invertebrate communities.
Long-toed Stint requires close attention to separate from Red-necked Stint — the kind of careful ID practice the program builds through early field visits. Recording it correctly is a marker of developing identification skill.
Marsh Sandpiper is most often encountered at freshwater wetlands and estuarine margins rather than open mudflat — if your monitoring site includes these habitats, it is worth recording alongside shorebird counts.
Eggs laid in scrapes on open sand. Virtually invisible until trodden on. A dog off-leash during nesting season can destroy an entire breeding attempt in seconds.
Unlike migratory species present for seven months, the Pied Oystercatcher is exposed to human disturbance every day of the year. Consistent Steward presence is its most effective protection.
A Steward's visible presence at a beach where oystercatchers are nesting changes the behaviour of other beach users. Recording nesting activity and disturbance events in Shoreline Watch builds a picture of whether this population is succeeding or failing at your site over time.
Sooty Oystercatcher habitat — rocky shores and reef margins — is monitored less systematically than mudflats. Recording this species at reef sites contributes to a more complete picture of shorebird community composition and nesting success across all Moreton Bay habitat types.
The Masked Lapwing's alarm call is an auditory early-warning system for roost disturbance events. Learning to distinguish its call from a Greenshank's or an oystercatcher's adds a valuable layer to field observation that complements visual monitoring.
Royal Spoonbill uses the same intertidal feeding areas as migratory shorebirds. Their presence or absence can indicate broader changes in fish and invertebrate availability at a site — ecological context that adds depth to shorebird monitoring records.
Nests are scrapes on open sand or bare coastal ground. Eggs and chicks are extremely cryptic but highly vulnerable to pedestrian traffic, dogs, and vehicles. Present year-round, nesting throughout.
Because it is resident and widespread, the Red-capped Plover often receives less attention than migratory species. But its breeding success is directly linked to the level of beach disturbance that Stewards can document and help reduce.
Recording Red-capped Plover nesting activity alongside migratory shorebird monitoring makes the point that resident species share the same habitat under equal and often overlooked pressure. Their presence in field records adds weight to arguments for beach management that protects both resident and migratory species.