Tourville and Murat Bays Important Bird Area is an important bird area in South Australia with a combined area of 117 square kilometres (45 square miles), located west to the town of Ceduna on the north-west corner of the Eyre Peninsula in the Great Australian Bight. It is considered to be an important area because of the resident populations of waders, or shorebirds.
The Important Bird Area (IBA) consists of two separate areas - one on the west side of Murat Bay and the other covering the full extent of Tourville Bay. Both bays open to Denial Bay which itself is bounded by St Peter Island, a member of the Nuyts Archipelago, on its east side. Tourville Bay has a relatively narrow neck and contains extensive intertidal flats and saltmarsh. Murat Bay is more open to the sea. They are separated by about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) of headland. The important bird area includes the intertidal zone and extends inland to take in other coastal features such as wetlands, including mangroves and playa lakes. [1]
The bays have been identified as an IBA by BirdLife International because, together, they support over 1% of the world populations of both pied and sooty oystercatchers. [2] Other birds for which the site is important include common greenshanks, red knots, sharp-tailed sandpipers, banded lapwings, red-capped plovers and fairy terns. There are also records of hooded plovers, pied and great cormorants, and white-faced herons. rock parrots inhabit the saltmarsh. [1]
While the IBA has no statutory status, it does overlap part of the Nuyts Archipelago Marine Park, a marine protected area declared by the Government of South Australia. [3]
Roebuck Bay is a bay on the coast of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Its entrance is bounded in the north by the town of Broome, and in the south by Bush Point and Sandy Point. It is named after HMS Roebuck, the ship captained by William Dampier when he explored the coast of north-western Australia in 1699. The Broome Bird Observatory lies on the northern coast of the bay.
The Great Sandy Strait is a strait in the Australian state of Queensland of 70 kilometres (43 mi) length which separates mainland Queensland from the World Heritage listed Fraser Island. It is also a locality in the Fraser Coast Region local government area. In the 2016 census, Great Sandy Strait had a population of 4 people.
The Swan Bay is a shallow, 30-square-kilometre (12 sq mi) marine embayment at the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula in Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia. The township of Queenscliff lies at its southern end, and St Leonards at its northern. It is partly separated from Port Phillip by Swan Island, Duck Island and Edwards Point. Most of the area is included in the Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park as well as being listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention as part of the Port Phillip Bay and Bellarine Peninsula Ramsar Site. The bay is part of the Swan Bay and Port Phillip Bay Islands Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance for orange-bellied parrots, waders and seabirds.
Edwards Point is a 4 km long sand spit extending southwards between Swan Bay and Port Phillip Bay, at the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria, Australia. It is about 115 km by road south-west of Melbourne and 40 km east of Geelong.
St Peter Island is an island in the Nuyts Archipelago on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia near Ceduna. It is the second largest island in South Australia and about 13 km (8.1 mi) long. It was one of the first parts of South Australia to be discovered and named by Europeans, along with St Francis Island, mapped by François Thijssen in 't Gulden Zeepaert in 1627.
St Francis Island is an island on the south coast of South Australia near Ceduna. It is part of the Nuyts Archipelago. It was one of the first parts of South Australia to be discovered and named by Europeans, along with St Peter Island, mapped by François Thijssen in 't Gulden Zeepaert in 1627.
The Corner Inlet is a 600-square-kilometre (230 sq mi) bay located 200 kilometres (120 mi) south-east of Melbourne in the South Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. Of Victoria's large bays it is both the easternmost and the warmest. It contains intertidal mudflats, mangroves, salt marsh and seagrass meadows, sheltered from the surf of Bass Strait by a complex of 40 sandy barrier islands, the largest of which are Snake, Sunday and Saint Margaret Islands.
The Gulf St Vincent Important Bird Area comprises land extending along the coast of Gulf St Vincent, north of Adelaide, South Australia.
The Nuyts Archipelago is an island group located in South Australia in the Great Australian Bight to the south of the town of Ceduna on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. It consisting of mostly granitic islands and reefs that provide breeding sites for Australian sea lions and support colonies of short-tailed shearwater. It also includes the island group known as the Isles of St Francis. All the islands with exception of a part of Evans Island, are located with the following protected areas - the Nuyts Archipelago Wilderness Protection Area and the Nuyts Archipelago Conservation Park.
The Robbins Passage and Boullanger Bay Important Bird Area is a 238 km2 tract of land at the western end of the north coast of Tasmania, south-eastern Australia. It comprises extensive areas of intertidal mudflats and saltmarsh with adjacent farmland. It is an important site for waders, or shorebirds.
Shallow Inlet is a marine inlet, opening onto Waratah Bay on the western side of the Yanakie Isthmus in South Gippsland, Victoria, south-eastern Australia. It lies close to the small holiday communities of Sandy Point and Yanakie, as well as to Wilsons Promontory and the Wilsons Promontory National Park.
The South Arm Important Bird Area is a disjunct tract of mainly intertidal land on the eastern outskirts of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
The Spencer Gulf Important Bird Area comprises a 460.38 square kilometres strip of coastal land extending for about 100 kilometres along the north-eastern coast of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia. It is considered to be an important site for waders, or shorebirds.
St Helens Important Bird Area comprises four separate sites, with a collective total area of 24 km2, in the vicinity of the town of St Helens on the northern part of the east coast of Tasmania, south-eastern Australia.
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 providing core wintering habitat for orange-bellied parrots, it is important for waders, or shorebirds, and seabirds.
Murat Bay is a bay at the western end of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It is an inlet of the Great Australian Bight. The main town on the bay is Ceduna.
The Anson Bay, Daly and Reynolds River Floodplains comprise some 2,656 square kilometres (1,025 sq mi) of seasonally inundated floodplains around Anson Bay, and the lower reaches of the Daly, Reynolds and Docherty Rivers entering the bay, on the west coast of the Top End of the Northern Territory of Australia. Anson's Bay lies about 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-west of Darwin, on the eastern side of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, opening on to the Timor Sea. The site is important for large numbers, and a wide variety, of waterbirds.
The Fog Bay and Finniss River Floodplains comprise the floodplain of the lower reaches of the Finniss River with the adjoining intertidal mudflats of Fog Bay in the Top End of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is an important site for waterbirds.
Nuyts Archipelago Wilderness Protection Area is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located in the Nuyts Archipelago off the west coast of Eyre Peninsula within 10 kilometres to 75 kilometres south-west of Ceduna.
Beatrice Islets are pair of islets in the Australian state of South Australia located in Nepean Bay on the north coast of Kangaroo Island about 4 kilometres east of Kingscote. The islets and adjoining intertidal areas are notable as habitat for bird life. The islet pair has enjoyed protected area status since 1909 and since at least 1972, have been part of the Beatrice Islet Conservation Park. During either the 1960s or the 1970s, the islets were extensively damaged by an exercise to remove an infestation of South African boxthorn.
Coastal bays and inlets of South Australia | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| West coast | |||
| Spencer Gulf | |||
| Investigator Strait | |||
| Kangaroo Island south and west coasts | |||
| Gulf St Vincent | |||
| Backstairs Passage | |||
| South east coast | |||
| Mainland |
| ||
Coordinates: 32°08′37″S133°29′41″E / 32.14361°S 133.49472°E
