Charadrius bicinctus breeding - Ralphs Bay

The Robbins Passage and Boullanger Bay Important Bird Area is a 238 km² tract of land at the western end of the north coast of

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

, south-eastern

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 comprises extensive areas of intertidal

mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

s and

saltmarsh A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It ...

with adjacent farmland. 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 encompasses all the mudflats around Robbins Island, extending eastwards around Perkins Bay to North Point. It includes most of the Duck Bay, Lees Point, Perkins Island and West Inlet Conservation Areas, as well as the Petrel Islands.BirdLife International. (2011). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Robbins Passage and Boullanger Bay. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2011-09-30. It is adjacent to the northern end of the North-west Tasmanian Coast Important Bird Area in the west. The Petrel Islands Group includes Big Stony, Little Stony,

Big Sandy Big Sandy may refer to: Communities *Big Sandy, Montana, a town in Chouteau County * Big Sandy, Nebraska, in Thayer County, Nebraska * Big Sandy, Tennessee, a town in Benton County * Big Sandy, Texas, a town in Upshur County * Big Sandy, West Virg ...

and

South West Petrel Island South West Petrel Island is an island game reserve with an area of 4 ha, part of the Petrel Island Group, lying in Bass Strait close to Walker and Robbins Islands in north-west Tasmania, Australia. Fauna Recorded breeding seabird, shorebird and ...

s. They support breeding

short-tailed shearwater The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater (''Ardenna tenuirostris''; formerly ''Puffinus tenuirostris''), also called yolla or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in A ...

s and are heavily used for

muttonbirding Muttonbirding is the seasonal harvesting of the chicks of petrels, especially shearwater species, for food, oil and feathers by recreational or commercial hunters. Such hunting of petrels and other seabirds has occurred in various locations sin ...

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 it supports over 1% of the world populations of

red-necked stint The red-necked stint (''Calidris ruficollis'') is a small migratory wader. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''ruficollis'' is from La ...

double-banded plover The double-banded plover (''Anarhynchus bicinctus''), known as the banded dotterel or pohowera in New Zealand, is a species of bird in the plover family. Two subspecies are recognised: the nominate ''Charadrius bicinctus bicinctus'', which bree ...

pied A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of unpigmented spots (white) on a pigmented background of hair, feathers or scales. Thus a piebald black and white dog is a black dog with white spots. The animal's skin under the white backg ...

and

sooty oystercatcher The sooty oystercatcher (''Haematopus fuliginosus'') is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird endemic to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. It prefers rocky coastlines, but will occasionally live in estuaries. All of its fea ...

s, and a population of

hooded plover The hooded plover or hooded dotterel (''Charadrius cucullatus'') is a species of bird in the family Charadriidae. It is endemic to southern Australia, where it inhabits ocean beaches and subcoastal lagoons. Taxonomy The hooded plover was Species ...

s. The IBA is the most important site for

s in Tasmania, with over 25,000 birds using it in summer. The saltmarsh and fringing farmland provide habitat for

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

orange-bellied parrot The orange-bellied parrot (''Neophema chrysogaster'') is a small parrot endemic (ecology), endemic to southern Australia, and one of only three species of parrot that bird migration, migrate. It was described by John Latham (ornithologist), John ...

s on

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

, as well as

flame robin The flame robin (''Petroica phoenicea'') is a small passerine bird native to Australia. It is a moderately common resident of the coolest parts of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Like the other two red-breasted ''Petroica'' robins ...

s and many of Tasmania's

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

bird species. Significant numbers of

ruddy turnstone The ruddy turnstone (''Arenaria interpres'') is a small Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan wader, wading bird, one of two species of turnstone in the genus ''Arenaria''. It is now classified in the sandpiper family Scolopacidae but was form ...

s and Far Eastern curlews have been recorded.

White-bellied sea eagle The white-bellied sea eagle (''Icthyophaga leucogaster''), also known as the white-breasted sea eagle, is a large diurnal bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Originally described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788, it is closely related ...

s and

Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle The Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle (''Aquila audax fleayi'') is an endangered bird of Tasmania. It is a subspecies of the more common wedge-tailed eagle. Description ''Aquila'' is a genus of large eagles that have long, rounded wings with deepl ...

s breed within the site. The IBA also supports some 242,000 breeding pairs of short-tailed shearwaters.

References

Coastline of Tasmania Bass Strait North West Tasmania Important Bird Areas of Tasmania {{Tasmania-geo-stub