Tom's Latest Podcast!

Tom has discovered some fascinating facts about curlews!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello, please listen to my latest podcast featuring facts about coastal curloos. They are also the Far Eastern or Eastern Curloo. The coastal curloo in Australia is the Far Eastern Curloo, the large and also the largest shorebird in the world, and is currently critically endangered. An unification in size. Far eastern curlews are 60 to 75 centimeters long, weighing around 900 grams with a long neck, long legs, and a very long down curved black bill used to probe mud crabs and other invertebrates. They are brown to tan, with females usually larger and with longer bills than males. In flight, bird wing patterns are visible and they have slow, deliberate wing beats. Habitat and distribution. They are coastal wetlands specialists, favoring intertidal mudflats, sand flats, estuaries, mangrove swamps, bays, harbours and lagoons. In Australia, they occur along the northeast and south coasts, including Tasmania, and are rarely seen in land. Migration and behaviour. Breeding occurs in Russia and northeast China with migration through East Asia. About 70-75% of the global population winters in Australia, arriving mainly on August to November. They are migratory, moving along coastlines and foraging on open, unvegetated mudflats. Conservation studies. Right now they are critically endangered. Global numbers are declining, mainly due to loss of intertidal mudflats in breeding and staging areas. Coastal development, land reclamation, and disturbance from recreation, and by catch and fishing nets. Threats in Australia. Key threats include habitat loss and degradation of coastal mudflats, coastal development and land reclamation, disturbance from beach users, disease such as H5 avian influenza, and conservation actions. Australia's threatened species strategy and action plan focuses on protecting and restoring key non-breeding habitats, for example, places like Hunter Esthery, educating beet users to minimize disturbance, supporting international flyaway agreements to protect breeding and staging sites overseas. In summary, the Far Eastern curly is globally rare migratory across coastal way to vital to Australia's wetlands, requiring both local habitat protection and international cooperation to ensure its survival. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Bye.