Goodbye is the saddest word

Meet Norman and Norma, Mr and Mrs Oystercatcher. Crazy names but they were chosen with the thought of the iconic Australian character, Norman Gunston in mind. These birds are great Aussie battlers, with big bleeding hearts because they so often, around Australia, see their eggs fail.

Year after year in NSW they are plumetting closer towards extinction. They are now listed as endangered in NSW. Why? Because they use an open beach to nest on.

Why do people complain about a fence line on a beach to protect a shorebird home when most people have fences around their own properties to keep visitors out and delineate my side/your side?

Oystercatchers only breed on a long, open beach.

We own our land, they own the sand, we look down on their home from on high and judge their right to have a fence?

All along the eastern coast line, fences are going up to protect beach nesting birds. If you don’t see fences, then there is no breeding happening. How many beaches do you not see fences on?

The oyster catchers’ challenge is pretty tough. These are being chipped away at. These include things such as keeping the beach clean of discarded fish, bait or food containers to help keep the predators under control. Tides and swells are being monitored so that sand bags can be put in place if, and only if, the nest is in immediate danger of being swamped.

I'll let you in on a secret few people know. Only those with a lot of time and patience get to experience it. Oystercatcher nesting is pretty special. The volunteers looking after the nesting site are always pretty impressed.

When the oystecatchers are on nest, and it is time to switch over nest duties, the parent that was not sitting slowly approaches, moving this way and that (they don’t want to give away the location of the nest to predators) then they gently tap on the back of the sitting parent. This lets the sitting parent know it is ok for them to get up. The parent that has been sitting and waiting will spend a little time pecking around, trying for patience, but they are pretty keen to head off. They end up running to go and bathe, get some food before returning to keep an eye out on the nest for predators.

It is also nice watching them select a nesting site. They take a few days as they want to try and make sure it will be as quiet as possible from people.

They build scrapes all around the beach but close to nesting they start favouring one particular location. They both take turns in building and sitting.

After three days Mr Oystercatcher starts getting impatient. He sees they are building the house, sitting, building, sitting, building, and he starts to get a little frustrated and starts pushing the Mrs up off the nest. Mrs reluctantly rises. He looks at the nest, looks at the Mrs, looks back at the nest, looks back at the Mrs, and seems confused that an egg isn’t there. They’ve worked hard together choosing the site, building that little scrape over and over again (because the wind keeps covering it) what is the hold up? Eventually it all comes together and one egg, then two, is produced.

They have only a few different calls that don’t last longer than a few seconds. They include annoyed, had enough of sleeping let me feed, glad we’ve landed back home ok after feeding (landings aren’t elegant), let’s mate.

The one call that goes on for hours, and is so heartbreaking, is the one when they’ve lost their eggs or chicks. When their nest has failed, they walk the length of the beach calling and calling, over and over again.

They arrive at the failed nest, sit down together (something they don’t normally do because they take it in turns looking after their nest), sit there looking out, looking at each other, then standing, looking underneath for the egg, sitting again, standing again and looking until they work it out, the eggs are gone.

If you live close to the beachfront, are looking out and have your windows or doors open, it is an incredibly distressing thing to see and hear.

There are so many apartments going up around Sydney that results in people using beaches in ever greater numbers.

With no back yard available, people swarm to the open spaces that beaches, reserves and parks provide. The increase in numbers of people in the suburbs is seeing a subsequent decrease in shorebird numbers. Australian resident shorebirds need an open beach to breed on, migratory shorebirds need the beach tidal flats to feed on and beach sand to rest on.

The migratory far eastern curlews (a migratory visitor to Deeban Spit since before computer records started) have declined by over 80% in just 3 decades throughout Australia. Like our oystercatchers that have many threats, they also have a lot to deal with during their migration. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our little bit to help them. It is a puzzle all working together that will ensure their survival. These short comedy clips about their plight are by John Clarke and Brian Dawe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bndabWDDX8o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W95SJ6BLdG0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnNL1aaQC5s

Within NSW, the resident, breeding pied oystercatcher shorebird; a tall, formal black and white bird, with the look at me flash of orange in beak and eye, are now endangered and they are finding it ever harder to find some space to raise their chicks. They are mostly quiet birds. Apart from their bright beak and eye, they try to blend into the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hl8eYh7_rI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID9KJ4kps78

How many pied oystercatchers that still exist in NSW can’t be exactly calculated, but it is estimated that they are now only in the hundreds with less than half of that being breeding pairs which gives them their endangered status.

Their problems are caused because people like to use the beach so much. People may not be aware, there is a need to share.

There are other living things, all shapes and sizes, that actually call the beach their home, all an essential part of a bigger ecosystem, not just visiting the beach for a dip or to go fishing.

Education is the key.

A day at the beach isn’t just people, sea gulls and ravens on the beach. Not everyone knows there is an entire ecosystem out there and most people stopping by like to hear what the fencing is about, how the whole story comes together and appreciate that there are people prepared to put the time in to help the shorebirds.

We have visitors from all over the world coming here, campers paradise. Some of the people say they know the place because of family (the best I've heard from was the 2nd along a line of 4 generations now using the camping grounds), friends, social media alerting people about cheap places to park (social media providing the back doors on getting pets into the park), Friends of the Royal, National Parks Association, Bird Societies.

So, what do you do if you see a shorebird? They are quite flighty so you may not see them before they see you and take flight. If you can keep an eye out ahead of where you are walking, it helps. The migratory shorebirds start getting twitchy when you are around 125 metres away.

If you see a flock of birds resting on the shore edge ahead of you, stop and have a look. They may well be sea gulls, but if you are very lucky they won’t be, they will be a shorebird. Look out for people prepared to show you what birds are there on the beach with you. Like the birds, they may not always be there, in which case you can take a mental note of the bird and look it up using the Birdlife Australia Shorebird Identification booklet via shorebirds@birdlife.org.au. Look out for colouring of the bird, height, bill length and curvature (up or down).

Fortunately there are some people prepared to put the time in to help the shorebirds from becoming just another statistic in the long line of Australian native species becoming extinct.

If you see a rope line set up a beach, have a look out for people standing or sitting around waiting to answer your questions. They aren’t there to chase you off. They are there to let you know why the fence lines are up, what endangered and critically endangered bird species call the beach their home and what you can do to help them survive.

On weekends and school holidays they will probably be there and are more than happy to chat with you and point out the birds, share their binoculars and answer other questions, such as “my grandpa and my mum says there are soldier crabs here, where are they?”

As the endangered shorebird operations run on volunteers, they may not always be there in bad weather, or mid-week that are not school holidays.

In that case, if you see a rope line on a beach (and no obvious people waiting around to answer questions) please don’t try to cross through the fence lines. The eggs the birds have laid within these lines are so well camouflaged you will very probably step on them before you see them.

Please only walk along the main shore line, not the creek shore line, as far from the rope line as you can. The sand is much firmer there and easier to walk on than the sand in the middle of the beach, where the birds nest.

Rope lines don’t show exactly how far you need to be away from the nervous nesting birds. The beach needs to be shared by both birds and people, and preference has been given to people.

Standing along the rope line to find the birds, or walking directly along the rope lines, can possibly cause the parent birds to move off nest. This can cause the death of the egg or chicks either by temperatures too high or too low, being covered over by wind, chicks starving because the parent are not there to feed them or a predator such as ravens or seagulls taking them.

Laying eggs to try and raise young is pretty low on the evolutionary scale, meaning it is getting increasingly difficult to successfully breed, but they still serve a useful purpose in the entire ecosystem.

If you see a rope line on a beach please move past the rope lines and pick another spot outside the fenced area to place your towel, yabby pump, or fish.

Nests for all birds fail more often than not for one reason or another, they have so much working against them. When there is a success for our beach nesting birds it will be something truly amazing. We've learnt something new and and hopefully it is something other beaches may be able to use. Birdlife Australia find one pair of birds on a beach that is easily manned by volunteers perfect. It provides research that is invaluable to the rest of the beach nesting birds around Australia. Some people think this beach is too busy, but 5 days a week there is probably only around 12 people using it. The other 2 days, the volunteers are there to help keep the birds on nest.

It is better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all.

Trying again is natural instinct.

Without it Mount Everest would still be unclimbed.

Our civilisation would not be as advanced as it is today.

Many people that are alive today would not be had people not continued to find a cure for the various diseases, such as heart or kidney disease.

People are starting to appreciate nature more and more and are starting to adapt to their requirements, something nature has been doing for millennia. We should be smart enough to be able to keep working together.

Deeban Spit being home to our pair of pied oystercatchers will continue to use this home to try raise a pair of chicks until they are too old to do so, which could be for another 18 years.

The problems they are facing are entirely of our making and so it is up to us to find a solution, not just leave things up to survival of the fittest (that is us, and we are pretty brutal).

In terms of community sentiment. People asking for a vote to see oystercatchers pushed closer to extinction because they think their protection fence is “untidy”, fills me with absolute shame to be part of the human race. What next? Residents wanting to start a family having to submit an application form to the community for a vote to be taken on whether they can have kids or not?

Reality TV has perhaps gone too far in disassociating people from actual reality. People are worried about cyberbullying for our kids, but one adult in a community page can whip the other adults into a pretty nasty campaign.

I used to see bandicoots in my backyard but haven't for the last 6 years. Let's not stand by and let our native species here in Maianbar keep disappearing.