Day 22, Tibooburra to Sydney

We headed to Tibooburra to refuel before flying the transects of the Macquarie Marshes.

Personalise

Photo: Flying over the Darling River

The team getting ready for an early start

Survey details

Date

Thursday 29 October 2026
Author

Richard Kingsford
Project

Eastern Australian Waterbird Survey
Observers

Richard Kingsford (UNSW), John Porter (NSW DCCEEW), Anne Ahern (UNSW)
Pilot

Thomas Clark

Aerial photograph showing expansive green wetland landscape with shallow water patches, muddy areas, and distant tree line.

Aerial photograph showing a small airplane shadow crossing a dense green field. Uniform vegetation texture fills frame.

We flew 11 transects across the Macquarie Marshes, each 200m wide, from east to west and back again. This allows us to estimate the total numbers and diversity of waterbirds across the entire Marshes.

The extensive reedbeds were still looking in good condition.

Most of the waterbirds were egrets, Australian White Ibis, a few Black Ducks, Pacific Herons and some Pelicans.

Flooding was restricted to a relatively few areas in the Marshes. Where there was flooding, it was generally not extensive and shallow but still supported many waterbirds. This included large areas with only the creek systems running through them. Most of the Marshes were dry.

Flooding was restricted to a relatively few areas in the Marshes

The video below shows surveying waterbirds over the river red gum forests, which were flooded.

This flooding was dependent on a released flow to the environment from Burrendong Dam, focused on maintaining some habitat for waterbirds and flooding small lagoons and reedbeds.

The Monkeygar system had water. We also visited all the known rookery sites, confirming there was no breeding of any ibis species, egrets, herons, spoonbills or cormorants.

There was little flooding in the southern marshes, including the Southern Nature Reserve.

Aerial photograph showing expansive wetland with shallow waterways, dense marsh vegetation, and scattered aquatic plants. Broad green marsh stretches toward horizon.

Flooding from Burrendong Dam environment flows

Photograph documenting a broad wetland habitat. Shallow reflective pools, patchy green vegetation, muddy ground, and a flat distant shoreline span scene.

The Monkeygar system had water

Aerial photograph documents a winding muddy river crossing a broad, sparsely vegetated floodplain. Meandering channels, green vegetation patches, exposed sediment, and distant flat terrain highlight erosion and changing river pathways.

There was little flooding in the southern marshes

From here, it was a direct flight to Dubbo to refuel.

We then flew to Lake Cowal, a very important freshwater lake for waterbirds. It has a major gold mine developed on its edge

Flying to Lake Cowal

This year the water had dried back considerably from the last two wet years. Because it was so shallow, it had thousands of waterbirds with high diversity.

There were no waterbird rookeries, which only get triggered in large floods, although there were Magpie Geese nesting.

Lake Cowal

The video below shows the survey of areas of aquatic vegetation in the middle of the lake.

The gold mine is now ‘eating’ its way into the high conservation value wetland, with a boundary enclosing an area with large numbers and diversity of waterbirds. This will be destroyed habitat, never to provide feeding areas for the diverse and abundant waterbird community. The edge of Lake Cowal, including the actual lakebed, is being destroyed by the expanding gold mine.