This article is part of this exercise.
Melbourne’s Western Treatment Plant is world-class for birdwatching.
Birds of the Western Treatment Plant
Waders are challenging to identify. Even Fred Smith—birdwatcher extraordinaire—once called them “little brown jobs”. In other words, they all look the same.
One of the best places to see waders in Australia is the Western Treatment Plant. For the uninitiated, the idea of a sewage plant being a RAMSAR site may be puzzling. But birds flock here from as far as Siberia and Alaska to spend their summer months down under, and once you see the variety of birds here, you won’t question why it’s been hailed as a world-class birdwatching venue.
Exploring the Western Treatment Plant isn’t as messy as you might expect. Most people take a 4WD and, essentially, go on a bird safari. So, trudging knee-deep in waste isn’t on the cards. Instead, armed with binoculars the size of my head, one Sunday, I piled into the car with four other birders. I was prepared for anything.
Golden-headed Cisticola http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/285405132/
For a city-dweller and a person relatively new to birds, the Western Treatment Plant doesn’t disappoint. The treatment plant is only half an hour from Melbourne, yet the range of birdlife compared to inner-city Melbourne is astronomical. The day I joined the other birders, we picked up 97 species. That’s a high number, even for an experienced birder.
Instead of being restricted to the usual Common Myna, Common Blackbird, Australian Magpie and Silver Gull—all found in Melbourne—the treatment plant was home to raptors, waders, wrens, finches and more.
My favourite bird of the day was the Golden-headed Cisticola; a small orange grassbird with dark streaky plumage. Though not a wader, it could be described as one of Fred Smith’s “little brown jobs”. It wasn’t until I looked at one carefully through my binoculars that I noticed what a beautiful bird it was.
Tips for the traveller
For those of you toying with the idea of spending a day at the Western Treatment Plant in search of birds, I have a few tips for you.
- Go with someone who knows birds. You will see double (if not more) the amount of birds you would have seen otherwise.
- Definitely bring binoculars. You won’t see a thing without them.
- You need to a permit to enter the Western Treatment Plant. Join someone who has one.
- Open your mind.
Many people think of birds as simply part of the landscape—like a blade of grass in a meadow. But birds are everywhere; they come in all different shapes and sizes, and it’s not until you realise how many birds there are around us, and the different roles they play in the same ecosystem, that you’ll come to appreciate those “little brown jobs” for what they truly are. That is, anything but something that is simply little and brown.
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