Lake Woods is an ephemeral freshwater lake in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It lies on Newcastle Creek close to the small town of Elliott on the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; it has a distance of . Its northern and souther ...

, about halfway between Darwin and

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

. It is important as a breeding site for

waterbird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

Description

There are two near-permanent waterholes on Newcastle Creek - South Newcastle and Longreach – that merge with Lake Woods during major floods, creating a large expanse of open water. The lake basin supports open

lignum Lignum is Latin for wood and may refer to: * ''Gmelina lignum-vitreum'', plant endemic to New Caledonia * Lignum, common name of ''Muehlenbeckia florulenta'', plant native to inland Australia * Lignum Crucis, remnants of the True Cross * Lignum Ltd ...

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...

and open woodland of

coolibah ''Eucalyptus coolabah'', commonly known as coolibah or coolabah, is a species of tree found in eastern inland Australia. It has rough bark on part or all of the trunk, smooth powdery cream to pink bark above, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, ...

gutta-percha Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus ''Palaquium'' in the family Sapotaceae, which is primarily used to create a high-quality latex of the same name. The material is rigid, naturally biologically Chemically inert, inert, resilient, electrically n ...

and belalie. River red gums occur around the waterholes. The land in the IBA is covered by two

pastoral lease A pastoral lease, sometimes called a pastoral run, is an arrangement used in both Australia and New Zealand where government-owned Crown land is leased out to Pastoral farming, graziers for the purpose of livestock grazing on rangelands. Austral ...

s, Newcastle Waters and Powell Creek, both of which are managed by the Consolidated Pastoral Company. About 8% of the land is managed as the Longreach Waterhole Protected Area by the

Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory __NOTOC__ Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory (also known as the ''Parks and Wildlife Division'' in some sources) is the Northern Territory Government agency responsible for tasks including the establishment of "parks, reser ...

in cooperation with the lease managers.BirdLife International. (2011). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Lake Woods. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 02/08/2011.

Birds

A tract of land, corresponding to the area of the lake when fully inundated, has been identified by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) because it has supported up to 116,000 waterbirds when flooded, including over 1% of the world population of

plumed whistling-duck The plumed whistling duck (''Dendrocygna eytoni''), also called the grass whistling duck, is a whistling duck that breeds in Australia. It is a predominantly brown-coloured duck with a long neck and characteristic plumes arising from its flanks. ...

s. It also provides habitat for

Australian bustard The Australian bustard (''Ardeotis australis'') is a large ground-dwelling bird that is common in grassland, woodland and open agricultural country across northern Australia and southern New Guinea. It stands at about high, and its wingspan is a ...

s and

yellow-tinted honeyeater The yellow-tinted honeyeater (''Ptilotula flavescens'') is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is found in northern Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territory, and Queensland) and Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitats are subt ...

s. Bird species recorded in substantial numbers include the

Australian pelican The Australian pelican (''Pelecanus conspicillatus'') is a large waterbird in the family Pelecanidae, widespread on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant in New Zealand. It ...

, Oriental pratincole and

little curlew The little curlew (''Numenius minutus'') is a wader in the large bird family Scolopacidae. It is a very small curlew, which breeds in the far north of Siberia. It is closely related to the North American Eskimo curlew. Etymology The word "curl ...

. The IBA is the only known inland breeding site in the Northern Territory for

great egret The great egret (''Ardea alba''), also known as the common egret, large egret, great white egret, or great white heron, is a large, widely distributed egret. The four subspecies are found in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and southern Europe. R ...

References

Woods Important Bird Areas of the Northern Territory {{NorthernTerritory-geo-stub