The Port McArthur Tidal Wetlands System comprises a 994 km² tract of tidal wetlands on the south-west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria 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 ...

. The land extends along the coast opposite the

Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands The Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands is situated in the south-west corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria, off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia. History They were named in 1802 by Matthew Flinders in honour of Edward Pellew, 1st Vi ...

, incorporating the estuaries of the McArthur and Wearyan Rivers. It is an important site for

wader 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

s, or shorebirds.

Description

The site lies partly on traditionally owned Aboriginal land and partly on the Bing Bong, Manangoora and Greenbank

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. The intertidal mudflats are up to 5 km in width and, at low tide, join up with those of South-West Island.BirdLife International. (2011). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Port McArthur Tidal Wetlands System. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 22/09/2011.

Birds

The site 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 the mudflats have supported over 1% of the world populations of

grey-tailed tattler The grey-tailed tattler (''Tringa brevipes'', formerly ''Heteroscelus brevipes''Banks, Richard C.; Cicero, Carla; Dunn, Jon L.; Kratter, Andrew W.; Rasmussen, Pamela C.; Remsen, J. V. Jr.; Rising, James D. & Stotz, Douglas F. (2006):Forty-seventh ...

s, eastern curlews and

great knot __NOTOC__ The great knot (''Calidris tenuirostris'') is a small wader. It is the largest species of the genus ''Calidris''. They are a migratory bird which breeds in Siberia, Russia, and flies to southern Asia and Australia in the northern winte ...

s, as well as moderate numbers of Asian dowitchers. Other wader species recorded in substantial numbers include

curlew sandpiper The curlew sandpiper (''Calidris ferruginea'') is a small wader that breeds on the tundra of Arctic Siberia. It is strongly bird migration, migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and in Australia and New Zeal ...

marsh sandpiper The marsh sandpiper (''Tringa stagnatilis'') is a small wader. It is a rather small Tringa, shank, and breeds in open grassy steppe and taiga wetlands from easternmost Europe to the Russian Far East. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the Neo-Latin name ...

s and

black-tailed godwit The black-tailed godwit (''Limosa limosa'') is a large, long-legged, long-billed shorebird first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. It is a member of the godwit genus, '' Limosa''. There are four subspecies, all with orange head, neck and ches ...

s. Great-billed herons occur in greater densities than recorded elsewhere in the Northern Territory. Small numbers of beach stone-curlews are present.

Little tern The little tern (''Sternula albifrons'') is a seabird of the family Laridae. It was first described by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas in 1764 and given the binomial name ''Sterna albifrons''. It was moved to the genus '' Sternula'' whe ...

s breed at sites along the coast. There are at least two large waterbird breeding colonies containing over 3000

egret Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) ado ...

s and

pied heron The pied heron (''Egretta picata''), also known as the pied egret is a bird found in coastal and subcoastal areas of monsoonal northern Australia as well as some parts of Wallacea and New Guinea. Taxonomy The species was originally described by ...

s. Non-waterbird species include white-gaped honeyeaters and canary white-eyes.

References

Important Bird Areas of the Northern Territory Gulf of Carpentaria Coastline of the Northern Territory Wetlands of the Northern Territory {{NorthernTerritory-geo-stub