Lake Victoria is a shallow

saline lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...

on the

Bellarine Peninsula The Bellarine Peninsula (Wathawurrung: ''Balla-wein'' or ''Biteyong'') is a peninsula located south-west of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, surrounded by Port Phillip, Corio Bay and Bass Strait. The peninsula, together with the Mornington Peni ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, close to the township of

Point Lonsdale Point Lonsdale is a coastal township on the Bellarine Peninsula, near Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia. The town is divided between the Borough of Queenscliffe and the City of Greater Geelong. Point Lonsdale is also one of the headlands which, ...

and part of the Lonsdale Lakes Nature Reserve administered by

Parks Victoria Parks Victoria is a government agency of the state of Victoria, Australia. Parks Victoria was established in December 1996 as a statutory authority, reporting to the Victorian Minister for Environment and Climate Change. The ''Parks Victoria Ac ...

Location and features

The lake is separated from

Bass Strait Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The strait provides the most direct waterwa ...

by a narrow strip of coastal dunes. It forms part of the

Swan Bay Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometim ...

wetland system of shallow marine areas and lagoons, and is an important

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

for

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 and

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.Hewish, M.J. (2003). ''Fauna values of three sub-coastal wetlands on the Bellarine Peninsula: Lake Victoria, Freshwater Lake and St Leonards Salt Lagoon''. Parks Victoria Technical Series No.10. Parks Victoria: Melbourne. ISSN 1448-4935 The site is part of the

Swan Bay and Port Phillip Bay Islands Important Bird Area The Swan Bay and Port Phillip Bay Islands Important Bird Area comprises a cluster of disparate sites centred at the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula, and the southern end of Port Phillip, in Victoria, south-eastern Australia. As well as ...

, identified as such by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

. Birds of conservation significance for which the lake and its surrounds are important include the

hooded plover The hooded dotterel or hooded plover (''Thinornis cucullatus'') is a species of bird in the family Charadriidae. It is endemic to southern Australia, where it inhabits ocean beaches and subcoastal lagoons. There are two recognised subspecies whi ...

, little egret and

orange-bellied parrot The orange-bellied parrot (''Neophema chrysogaster'') is a small parrot endemic to southern Australia, and one of only three species of parrot that migrate. It was described by John Latham in 1790. A small parrot around long, it exhibits sex ...

. It sometimes holds internationally significant numbers of

red-necked stint The red-necked stint (''Calidris ruficollis'') is a small migratory wader. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''ruficollis'' is from La ...

s and

banded stilt The banded stilt (''Cladorhynchus leucocephalus'') is a nomadic wader of the stilt and avocet family, Recurvirostridae, native to Australia. It belongs to the monotypic genus ''Cladorhynchus''. It gets its name from the red-brown breast band fo ...

s.Hewish, Marilyn. (2003). The waterbirds of Lake Victoria, a sub-coastal wetland on the Bellarine Peninsula. ''Geelong Bird Report'' 2002: 73-110. Plant communities consist of salt tolerant species typical of coastal dune woodland and saltmarsh in the region.

Woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

and tall

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

along the southern lakeshore mainly consist of Moonah ''

Melaleuca lanceolata ''Melaleuca lanceolata'' commonly known as black paperbark, moonah, Rottnest Island teatree and western black tea tree is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is native to Australia where it occurs in Western Australia, South Australia, ...

'', a species that is listed as threatened in Victoria under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

References

External links

The Bellarine Landcare Group
Lakes of Victoria (Australia) Saline lakes of Australia Bellarine Peninsula Important Bird Areas of Victoria (Australia) {{VictoriaAU-geo-stub