The Werribee and Avalon Important Bird Area comprises some 37 km² of coastal land along the northwestern shore of Port Phillip in the state of Victoria, in southeastern

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 ...

. It is important for a wide variety of waterbirds.

Description

The site consists of wetlands stretching from the mouth of the Werribee River in the northeast to the city of

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

in the southwest. It encompasses the sewage treatment ponds of the Western Treatment Plant, with the adjoining Spit Nature Conservation Reserve and Lake Borrie, the intertidal

mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...

s around Point Wilson, the Avalon saltworks, and Limeburners Bay. As well as the treatment ponds and mudflats, the coastal habitats include saltmarshes and mangroves. The site is flat and low-lying; it experiences temperatures ranging from a mean minimum of 7°C in July to a mean maximum of 24°C in January and February, with an annual rainfall of 750 mm. Apart from the saltworks, the area also forms part of the Port Phillip Bay (Western Shoreline) and Bellarine Peninsula Ramsar Site.BirdLife International. (2011). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Werribee and Avalon. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2011-11-23.

Birds

The site has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) 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 ...

because it supports regular numbers of orange-bellied parrots, and over 1% of the world populations of blue-billed, musk, freckled and pink-eared ducks, Australian shelducks,

chestnut teal The chestnut teal (''Anas castanea'') is a dabbling duck found in Australia. It is protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. Taxonomy The chestnut teal was described by the English naturalist Thomas Campbell Eyton in 1838 under ...

s, Australasian shovelers, hoary-headed grebes, red-necked stints and sharp-tailed sandpipers. Other waterbirds that use the site in substantial numbers include banded stilts, curlew sandpipers, red-capped and double-banded plovers, black-fronted dotterels, pied oystercatchers, red-necked avocets,

black swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon c ...

s, hardheads, Pacific black ducks and great crested grebes.

References

Important Bird Areas of Victoria (state) Coastline of Victoria (state) Port Phillip Werribee, Victoria {{VictoriaAU-geo-stub