12 Birding in Wetlands
About this episode
Wetlands can feel overwhelming until you learn how to move through them slowly. Peter Murphy shares birdwatching at Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands and how volunteering can build your skills.
Episode illustration: Great Egret
Peter Murphy was born and bred on the Mornington Peninsula. While he always had a love of animals and nature, his passion for birdwatching is quite new. Peter has a special affection for Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands. He is here to share his knowledge about birdwatching in this part of the world and how volunteering can help you level up your skills.
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Kirsty: This episode of Weekend Birder was recorded at Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands, known as Carrum Carrum by the Bunurong Boonwurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation. I would like to pay my respect to Elders past and present, and thank them for the way that they have cared for this incredible Country for tens of thousands of years.
Kirsty: Welcome to Weekend Birder - I'm Kirsty Costa. This podcast shares the stories and advice of the birdwatching community. In this episode, you're going to meet Peter Murphy who was born and bred on the Mornington Peninsula, just south of Melbourne. He's an electrician by trade and has always had a love of animals and nature. Like me, Peter really got into birdwatching during the COVID-19 lockdowns. He found a library book about fifteen Mornington Peninsula walks and then he decided to do them all. He soon discovered that these walks is where birdwatchers also love to go.
Peter: Yeah, I just got talking to some birdwatchers, as you do, and they encouraged me to buy a cheap pair of binoculars. So I did. And then from that just fell in love. It was like my new surfing. I grew up surfing, and it really takes over your whole life. And so is this. And when you get your binoculars to pop out and it's just pops in your eyes, it's magic. It's like it's better than any TV screen. It's like TV can't reproduce it. Someone will one day but what what you see through a pair of binoculars is... it's magic!
Kirsty: Peter and I are sitting in a bird hide in the Edithvale section of the Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands. The wetlands is where I fell in love with birdwatching, and so did Sean Dooley from BirdLife Australia. You can listen to his interview in a previous episode. And so did Peter.
Peter: The mighty Carrum Carrum swamp, stretching from Mordialloc to Frankston and out towards Dandenong on the Bunurong Boonwurrung people's land, was drained in the 1860s and the land given over to farming, followed later by urban development. Reclamation work began in the 1970s, resulting in the creation of the Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands and the regeneration of the wetland ecosystems. They are about ten kilometres apart and together cover 260 hectares. Edithvale wetlands is 100 hectares, Seaford wetlands is 160 hectares. They are now one of twelve Victorian wetlands that are protected by the Ramsar Convention and are unusual in that they are thriving urban wetland.
Kirsty: Every time he visits the wetlands, Peter is reminded of how important they are to people, to animals, to birds, to plants and also to nearby Port Phillip Bay.
Peter: Wetlands are the link between the land and the sea, and they're their flood mitigation. So they're good for all our communities because they soak up all the heavy rainfall events and then gradually disperse it in a calm fashion rather than flooding streets and houses. So we need them. And we need them for biodiversity. Wetlands and their buffer zones provide important habitat for a number of fauna, including birds, frogs, possums, reptiles, water rats, bats, galaxias fish and macro invertebrates. For waterbirds, wetlands are crucial because they feed and breed in water. These wetlands are an internationally significant habitat for a wide variety of bird life. About 120 species, including a number of rare and endangered migratory waterbirds from as far afield as Siberia. It's an amazing journey that they make. And for such little birds generally, most of them the size of your fist, they journey from one side of the world to the other. And none of them glide. They flap the whole way. So they wing beat every inch of the way from the Arctic to here. And even more incredible, I think, is most because they generally go to the tundra and that's full of mozzies. So they have their eggs up there and they give birth to chicks and the chicks eat all the mozzies and so do the parents and refuel up of their journey back home to here. So the fledglings are sort of like our teenagers and the parents leave the teenagers a month early, so they leave the teenagers there for the last month of the northern summer just to fill up on some more mozzies and fatten up for their long journey to the other side of the world. Then these teenagers fly from one side of the world to the other. They've never done it before. How do they know where to go exactly? But they do. That's sort of like a ten year old walking from Frankston to Melbourne but they've never been there. I just find that fascinating that these teenage birds can pull off such a such an adventure, such a journey. So yeah, I think they're amazing. The Seaford wetlands is saline, whereas this (Edithvale Wetlands) is natural water or freshwater. What happened with Seaford wetlands? The authorities dug too deep so they didn't quite know what they were doing. So they just sort of blew it and they just just scraped the earth just too much, too deep. And so the saltwater came through from the bottom. So now that's a completely different ecosystem - doesn't have the grasses that grow here in the water, which is what all the dabbling ducks eat. They generally eat grass that's in the water and under the water. So the swans and lots of other birds, you generally don't see those birds at Seaford because it's saline. And that grass does just doesn't grow there. But you get different birds there too so it's great. You get your Black Swans, which are just about have their cygnets and I think some have here. And that's an amazing sight, these cute little balls of creamy fluff. And even one of them rides on mum's back as they are swimming along. And it's quite amazing. But we get lots of coots with their white beak. We get Chestnut Teals and Grey Teals, we get Swamp Harriers, we get Black-shouldered Kites, Hobbies, Welcome Swallows, Australasian Swamp Hens. Just all sorts.
Kirsty: Birdwatching in a wetlands is a bit different to birdwatching in a forest or other places around Australia. Peter has some great tips on how to see birds that live in this type of ecosystem.
Peter: Well, I guess, you do the obvious first. You look on the water and just see what birds are around because they're the first things that pop into your eyes and be mindful of the birds that dive and disappear because many birds do this. So take your time. Darters and cormorants can dive for great distances, reappearing quite a way from the initial dive. Then of course, you check the banks of the wetlands to see what's feeding on the worms and crustaceans that live in the mud. Most migratory shorebirds spend their time here.
Kirsty: Everyone seems to find a technique that works for them. When I'm birdwatching in a wetland, first I scan the space with my eyes and become familiar with what is there. This helps me when I'm using my binoculars by giving me points of reference. So first I might look at the shoreline and the grasses. I look at the water to see if there are any logs or rocks and I'll also look at any nearby trees and branches. Once I get out my binoculars, I take my time panning from one end to the other. I stop at the interesting things that I find along the way. As you perfect your binocular technique, you might like to branch out and buy a scope to help you birdwatch in a wetlands.
Peter: A scope is what gives you much more magnification than your binoculars. Like your binoculars are generally ten times better than your eyesight, which is amazing in itself. But a scope is 20-80 times better than your eyesight. So I can get distances. I can read the writing on the side of a ship that's way out to sea. I can see across the other side of the bay, I mean, it's just shapes but you can get amazing distances. So scopes are like what the pirates used to have in the old days, but now they've modernized and you put them on a tripod. You put your eyepiece on and you can get twenty times your eyes up to eighty times your eyes, but you do lose a bit of color and light when you do that. But they're great for birds in the distance, say birds in wetlands, like where we are today when they might be a kilometer away. They're also good for raptors in the air because you can follow it, use it, loosen off the controls, and you use it sort of like a steering wheel. And you can actually follow slow moving raptors. And through the scope you can see their markings. Whereas when you look at a raptor with binoculars, it's just a shape. Generally it's a brown shape and that's it through a scope, you see their incredible markings, which you didn't really know exist except in a photo in a book. And they're great for shorebirds along a beach. Anything that's far distance. I take mine to forests and woodlands and every now and then I get to look at a slow moving bird with a scope. Wow. You know, like, it's just like ten times a pair of binoculars! I've also now got into a little bit of, almost like, poor man's photography (because I'm a poor man). I put my mobile phone onto the eyepiece of my scope, and it's really just held there by a clamp. And then the phone is the hero and the phone just takes videos of three minutes or one minute of footage of birds, and then you replay it on your phone. And while the colors and the clarity is incredible, like fantastic, then I can even take screenshots. I lift screenshots off that little bit of footage. They're not as good as the photographer's photo because they haven't got the pixels but they're they give me pleasure and and that doubles the fun I like. I go birdwatching all day with my scope. Actually, there's a Swamp Harrier just flying past me down at the back there!
Kirsty: Whoa!
Peter: So I spend all day birdwatching and I take footage through my scope. When I get home at night instead of switching on the telly, I just go through the the videos that I've shot. You always like weed out. You turn ten into one good one and then it's just it's doubling up with the fun. And I just fall into bed and I have such a good sleep because I've had a great day. So yeah, I love it. I love my scope.
Kirsty: The more I do research, the more I find amazing humans who are volunteering their time to share their love of birdwatching and care for their local places. The Friends of Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands is one of those groups and Peter is an active member.
Peter: Following the reclamation works, the Friends of Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands Inc (which in short is FESWI) formed in the late 1970s and has been very active in protecting, enhancing and educating about the wetlands since. Over the years in both wetlands fiercely has planted out thousands of trees and understory plants in the buffer zones. FESWI conducts walks around the wetlands, host school and community groups, visits to the wetlands and has a presence at community functions. The bird hide on the very edge of the wetlands. Its feet are often in water, offers unparalleled views of birdlife and opportunities for photography. FESWI opens this to the visitors on weekend afternoons. Over the years, our focus seems to have gradually shifted from enhancement planting and weeding etcetera., to education. We keep a watching brief on development close to the wetlands and have in the recent past opposed a number of proposed development activities.
Kirsty: Peter is just starting out, but in the small time that he has been birdwatching, he has learnt so much thanks to his curiosity and to people in FESWI and his local BirdLife Branch - BirdLife Mornington Peninsula.
Peter: Join a local birdwatching club because you listen and learn off the people that are there. Each time you walk away with more knowledge, that knowledge accumulates like you think When you turn up, you think, God, I'm never going to know what all these people know. And all twenty people in the group seem to be so knowledgeable and you turn up and you know nothing. But it's incredible because you hear them talk and and each time you pick up just a little bit more knowledge than what you did before you turned up to the walk. And that accumulates and you don't think it accumulates. And after about a year, you're actually quite knowledgeable. You know, of course, that there's twenty years to go until you're very knowledgeable, but it really is a fairly quick learn. And if people get scared a bit with being too daunted by knowing, is that a male or a female of the Golden Whistler or anything. It just it just comes, just comes. I think it might be like learning a language. It's daunting. And then just wake up one day and it just the answer appears and you don't have to know everything.I think that's the joy of it for for me, or for anyone, that you're always learning. You're learning each time you'll never stop learning. And that's what makes it exciting. And that's why I think people who get serious, they then master their own environment and then they go, "Well, I want more. So I want to I want to go see a desert bird". So they'll they'll go for a holiday to Alice Springs or northern Victoria or New Zealand or far north Queensland just to see some other birds. And all that experience and there's lots of different types of birdwatchers, there's people who tick numbers off a list and I'm not quite that. My list is in my heart. I just like to see birds and then I know I've seen it and I know my memories there and I don't have to tick it off. But a lot of people do that. There are a lot of the clubs that I'm involved with, which is the Mornington Peninsula Bird Life Association of Australia Club. We do surveys and we do we advocate for certain things and it's just a great bunch of people and we all just love birds and it's just good for the soul. You come out and you put your binoculars up and it's like petting a dog. You pet a dog and suddenly if your heart feels a bit warmer. Well, it's the same. When I go birdwatching, I hold my binoculars up and suddenly the weight of the world's gone off my shoulders. And I start to feel relaxed and less anxious. The world's good again when I go birdwatching. And I just wish more people would do it. Because once you've bought your binoculars and they can be as cheap as $50 or $300-400 for a better pair or whatever. But once you've bought them, the hobby is free. So it's just good, clean fun that's free. You know, I go for a day and it's about $20 in petrol and a couple of sandwiches, which I would have had to have make anyway. And I have the best day. And I just think more and more people should get into this. I think a lot of the younger people think it's an oldies sort of a gig. I don't know. I just wish more young people get into it because you're more gentle types of younger person would actually love it.
Kirsty: I'll pop a link to BirdLife's local groups in the episode notes so that you can find some people to go birdwatching with. And you can also join the Sydney Bird Club for an adventure. Their interview is in a previous episode of this podcast. I love how Peter describes birdwatching as like learning a language. I'd never really thought about it that way, and I hope that this episode has reminded you that becoming a person who likes to bird on the weekends, a weekend birder, is something that you can quickly learn and then develop your skills and knowledge over time. Happy birdwatching.
