Buckingham Bay is a large, rectangular bay on the northern coast of Arnhem Land, in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

of Australia. It lies 520 km east of Darwin and 120 km west of Nhulunbuy.

Description

The bay is about 40 km long and 16 km wide. It is aligned from south-west where the

Buckingham River Buckingham River is a river in the Northern Territory of Australia. The headwaters of the river are on the northern edge on the eastern side of the Mitchell Ranges near where the Central Arnhem Road crosses the Range. The river flows in a no ...

enters, to north-east where it opens into the

Arafura Sea The Arafura Sea (or Arafuru Sea) lies west of the Pacific Ocean, overlying the continental shelf between Australia and Western New Guinea (also called Papua), which is the Indonesian part of the Island of New Guinea. Geography The Arafura S ...

. It is largely bordered by intertidal mudflats, with patches of

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

s along the lower reaches of the Buckingham River. The saline flats back on to a seasonally inundated

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

. There are scattered patches of dry coastal vine thicket along the margins of the floodplain. The bay and adjoining plains are held by the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Land Trust as Aboriginal

freehold Freehold may refer to: In real estate *Freehold (law), the tenure of property in fee simple * Customary freehold, a form of feudal tenure of land in England * Parson's freehold, where a Church of England rector or vicar of holds title to benefice ...

land. The nearest communities are Galiwin'ku on

Elcho Island Elcho Island, known to its traditional owners as Galiwin'ku (Galiwinku) is an island off the coast of Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located at the southern end of the Wessel Islands group located in the East Arnhem ...

15 km to the north-west, and

Gapuwiyak Gapuwiyak, also known as Lake Evella, is an Aboriginal Australian community located in north-eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, south of the head of Buckingham Bay and about the same distance south-west of Arnhem Bay. The settlement had ...

some 25 km to the south.Sites of Conservation Significance: Buckingham Bay.

Birds

The bay's intertidal mudflats and seasonally flooded coastal plains have been classified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA). The area covered by the IBA is 32,642 ha.Birdata. The bay is especially significant for the migratory

wader 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...

s, or shorebirds, that breed in northern Asia and Alaska during the northern summer and spend the non-breeding season in Australia. Up to about 20,000 wades have been recorded on the bay's mud and saline flats. Species for which count data indicate the site's global significance include black-tailed godwit (6000),

eastern curlew The Far Eastern curlew (''Numenius madagascariensis'') is a large shorebird most similar in appearance to the long-billed curlew, but slightly larger. It is mostly brown in color, differentiated from other curlews by its plain, unpatterned brown ...

(700), and

great knot __NOTOC__ The great knot (''Calidris tenuirostris'') is a small wader. It is the largest of the calidrid species. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside bird ...

(5000). Up to 8500

waterbird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

s have been recorded using the bay, with numbers of pied herons being globally significant. A waterbird breeding colony in the mangroves near the mouth of the Buckingham River contained 5500 birds in 1999, predominantly pied herons and

intermediate egret The intermediate egret, median egret, smaller egret, or yellow-billed egret (''Ardea intermedia'') is a medium-sized heron. Some taxonomists put the species in the genus '' Egretta'' or ''Mesophoyx''. It is a resident breeder from east Africa a ...

s. Other birds for which the site is significant are brolgas and

magpie geese The magpie goose (''Anseranas semipalmata'') is the sole living representative species of the family Anseranatidae. This common waterbird is found in northern Australia and southern New Guinea. As the species is prone to wandering, especially w ...

Other animals

Introduced

water buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), also called the domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, North America, So ...

s and

feral pig The feral pig is a domestic pig which has gone feral, meaning it lives in the wild. They are found mostly in the Americas and Australia. Razorback and wild hog are Americanisms applied to feral pigs or boar-pig hybrids. Definition A feral ...

s threaten the wetlands.

References

Notes

Sources

* * Arnhem Land Bays of the Northern Territory Important Bird Areas of the Northern Territory {{NorthernTerritory-geo-stub