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Beach-Nesting Birds

This project is funded by the Australian Government’s National Heritage Trust under a Regional Catchment Competitive Investment Grant and hosted by Port Phillip and Westernport Catchment Management Authority (PPWCMA). It aims to improve and inform decision making for the conservation management of Australia’s resident, beach-nesting shorebirds. This project will increase awareness and involvement by communities and beach users in conservation of beach-nesting birds.

Protecting our beach-nesting birds

Vulnerable Hooded Plover Chick © Grainne Maguire

Hooded Plovers, along with many other beach-nesting birds in Australia as well as around the world, are threatened with extinction because they struggle to breed successfully. You may have seen adult Hooded Plovers at your local beach for years and in winter, you might spot as many as 50 birds in a flock, leading you to think they aren’t in any danger. However, the adult birds live for about 10-15 years and if there aren’t new young birds being produced to replace the older ones that die, then the species will be lost from our coast in the not-so-distant future.

Life’s a beach

Mike Weston and Project Officer Grainne Maguire looking at nests © Jon Fallaw

Hooded Plovers are very particular about the beaches they choose to live on. The beach needs to have enough food to sustain the pair and their young, and also needs to have the right type of nesting habitat. They prefer wide, ocean beaches with lots of tide-swept seaweed and flotsam and jetsam, and the beaches usually need to be backed by dunes rather than rocky cliffs. Hooded Plovers prefer open habitats for nesting. They will not make a nest in heavily vegetated dunes, instead prefer blowouts, Aboriginal middens and dunes sparsely vegetated with native Spinifex grasses. These dune habitats are threatened by coastal developments, erosion from pedestrian traffic and even erosion control measures, such as infestations of Marram grass and laying brush over blow outs. Beach-nesting birds are choosing more often to lay their eggs on beaches as the dunes become less suitable, and often they might choose to nest nearest an access path because this is where the beach and dune is most open.

Hooded Plovers along with other resident shorebirds, lay their eggs directly on the sand in a simple, shallow nest scrape from August to March. The nest can be found anywhere above the high-tide mark, on the beach or in the dunes. Some of the other beach-nesting species, such as Oystercatchers also like to nest in rocky areas and on offshore islands.

Laying eggs on the beach...are these birds crazy?!

Laying eggs on a beach during late spring and summer might seem like an unintelligent thing to do, but these birds are nesting closest to their food source because when the eggs hatch, the chicks need to start feeding straight away and can’t travel very far on their tiny legs. The beach and dunes are also a great place to camouflage the nest because the three tiny eggs (the size of twenty cent coins) are speckled grey and brown to blend in perfectly with the grainy sand. A predator has to search long and hard to discover the eggs, giving them a good chance of survival. The one thing that Hooded Plovers did not evolve with was the enormous number of people that flock to the beaches during their nesting season. Encroaching coastal developments and changes to the dune environment leave the Hooded Plovers little room to adapt to our presence.

While the tide might wash out a nest, a seagull or magpie might eat the eggs, or a kestrel might swoop down and take a chick – these natural threats have never been frequent or severe enough to threaten the survival of the species. However, the impact of people has greatly upset the balance and Hooded Plovers, Victoria’s only exclusive beach-nesting birds, are now faced with extinction. Only 400 are left on our coast – already the species has become extinct in Queensland and Northern NSW, and only 60 birds remain in Southern NSW. Last year during spring and summer, 180 birds were monitored by Birds Australia volunteers as part of a statewide project aimed at improving their survival. Of 353 eggs that were laid, only 35 chicks survived, and this wasn’t without effort from land managers and local community members. Such poor breeding success cannot sustain population numbers. These small, tubby black and white birds need our help to survive!

How are the birds threatened?

When the birds have eggs, both parents take turns to incubate so that there is always a bird on the eggs keeping them at the right temperature. They do this for 28 days. Camouflage keeps predation of eggs low, but this isn’t too helpful to humans because it means we can accidentally step on the eggs. This is why you might see signs up or a temporary fence to warn us of a nest in the area. The signs and fence might be a fair way apart and this is because Hooded Plovers aren’t anything like the Spur-winged Plover (Masked Lapwings), they aren’t aggressive and they don’t swoop, instead they run from their nest and in front of us or our dog hoping to lead us away from the area. The trouble is that they stay off the nest the whole time we are close by and if this is for too long, the eggs can literally bake on the hot sand or be buried/cool in colder weather. Fencing and signing the nest gives the birds a bit of a buffer from disturbance by keeping us at a distance. These fences and signs cover up to 50m of beach, but are only effective if people follow the guidelines on the signs within this very small area.

It is a lot harder to protect the chicks once they hatch. They are tiny (they hatch from an egg the size of a 20 cent coin) and camouflaged. They can’t fly for 5 weeks and this is a long time to spend as a very vulnerable chick on a busy beach. They don’t get fed by their parents but have to find food for themselves down on the beach amongst the seaweed, sometimes on the rock platforms. The parents’ role is to stay with them and warn them of danger. The dunes are the chicks’ ideal hiding place. Their day consists of running down to the seaweed to feed, and if they are disturbed, running to the dune to hide. On a busy day they spend nearly the whole day running to hide and this takes all their energy and is enough to lead to starvation. We have put out some wooden shelters as extra hiding places because in some areas the dune is too steep for the chicks to run up. The chicks don’t always see you coming (not until you’re at the distance of the signs) and therefore often don’t have time to make it on their tiny legs to the safety of the dune. They can crouch on the beach by seaweed or in the open, and this makes them so easy to step on.

The Biggest Threats

People and dogs are a big threat but because most people (and leashed dogs too) are predictable in the way they walk along the beach - typically in a straight line and by the water’s edge – the birds have a better chance of hiding and protecting themselves from us. An unleashed dog is more likely to explore and to move in an unpredictable way, to go from the water to the upper beach, some even run up the dune. This means they are more likely to encounter the eggs or crouching chicks, and to accidentally step on and crush them. The chicks in particular get confused by not being able to predict where the best hiding place is when they can’t predict how an animal will move past them and the speed of this movement. They think they have people figured out, but when a person or their pet enters the upper beach or dune, this greatly increases the chance of killing the chick. Dune boarding and people walking through the dunes is also becoming a huge threat to these birds, and ultimately leads to more erosion control measures which further reduce nesting habitat suitability.

Changing attitudes and communities

This is a little Aussie bird battling to survive! Fifty metres of beach for 63 days (the nesting cycle) of the year should be an easy accommodation to make for a threatened species. Please include the Hooded Plover as part of the enjoyment of your local beach – they are funny little birds to watch, their tubby bodies on skinny legs that move so fast underneath them.

How can we help?

It is possible to enjoy a day at the beach in spring and summer, and not be a threat to these birds, by remembering to:

Look for signs at the access point that will tell you if Hooded Plovers are found at your beach. Remember they are found on ocean beaches, not bayside beaches.
Keep an eye out for Hooded Plovers and if you see one, walk on another 100m down the beach before settling.
There might be signs or fences on the beach pointing out that you are near an active nest – please avoid this area and follow what the signs say.
Walk your dog on a lead
Stay clear of the dunes
The safest place to be is at the water’s edge

Where are Hooded Plovers Found in my Local Area?

If you would like to be kept informed of how well the Hooded Plovers are doing in your local area or how they compare to Hooded Plovers elsewhere in Victoria, I can include you on an email update list. Or if you would like to become more involved in active conservation of the species or monitoring breeding pairs, please call me, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Hooded Plover Project Manager at the Birds Australia National Office 03 9347 0757.

For more information about Hooded Plovers and threatened shorebirds in NSW, click here