BirdLife ’s National Beach-nesting Birds Conference

May 24th - 26th 2019, Inverloch, BirdLife Australia’s Beach-nesting Birds Conference is aimed at sharing the latest research findings and stakeholder knowledge around beach-nesting bird species, their habitats, threats and conservation management. There will be many opportunities to meet other participants in the program from across the Australian coast and to hear about the challenges faced, and the solutions that are devised. The conference attracts a diversity of representatives from local and state government, coastal committees of management, volunteers, community groups, and researchers and students. We have a range of presentations, workshops and field trips on offer that are aimed at building and extending knowledge and skill sets around threatened species protection and coastal management.

Day 1 Friday 24th May 2019 Arrival/registration from 9:00 am Conference 9:20 am – 2:15 pm, Inverloch Community Hub, 16 Abeckett St, Inverloch Field Trips 2:15 pm – 4:45 pm, a number to choose from (finishing times may vary) Optional Dinner Dinner (optional) 6:30 pm, Harman Wines, 612 Korumburra-Inverloch Rd, Wattle Bank Day 2 Saturday 25th May 2019 Arrival/registration from 9:00am Conference 9:20 am – 1:40 pm, Inverloch Community Hub, 16 Abeckett St, Inverloch Workshops 1:40 pm – 4:30 pm, a number to choose from, see program Day 3 Sunday 26th May 2019 Field trips from 8:00 am, a number of day-long field trips to choose from, see program

REGISTER AND PURCHASE TICKETS BY MIDNIGHT THURSDAY 9th MAY: STEP 1: REGISTER HERE https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019BNBConference

STEP 2: PURCHASE TICKETS HERE http://support.birdlife.org.au/2019_BNB_Conference

www.birdlife.org.au/beach

Conference Registration Process and Costs Registering for this conference is a two-step process:

1. Fill out our online survey form to register your attendance and to select field trips and workshop preferences. This will ensure we can suitably cater for the event and can assign workshops to the appropriately sized rooms based on how popular these are: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019BNBConference

2. Purchase tickets for the event and optional extras such as the Conference Dinner, packed lunch for the Sunday field trip or a beach-nesting birds glass travel mug, below: http://support.birdlife.org.au/2019_BNB_Conference

Below is an outline of costs for the event. Please note that there is a discount if a two-day (Friday and Saturday) ticket is purchased, and Volunteers, Community and Students also receive a discounted attendance price. Sunday is free to attend but there is the option of purchasing a packed lunch for the trip. Ticket types Cost/unit Land Manager/Professional – Friday and Saturday $100 Land Manager/Professional – Friday only $50 Land Manager/Professional – Saturday only $55 Volunteer/Community/Student – Friday and Saturday $60 Volunteer/Community/Student – Friday only $30 Volunteer/Community/Student – Saturday only $35

Optional Extras: Friday night Conference Dinner $30 (Share platters and wood fired pizzas, drinks not included) Sunday field trip packed lunch $9 Beach-nesting Birds Travel Mug (Joco glass 8oz cup, regular) $15 Beach-nesting Birds Travel Mug (Joco glass 12oz cup, large) $16

Key dates: • Abstract submissions open - 6th Feb 2019 • Conference registration opens - 15th Mar 2019 • Abstract submissions close - 22nd Mar 2019 • Notification of successful talk slots - 29th Mar 2019 • Conference registration closes – 9th May 2019 until Midnight

Please contact [email protected] if you require help with registering.

7th National Beach-nesting Birds Conference Program

DAY 1 Friday 24th May Day one consists of conference presentations followed by local field trips after lunch. A finalised agenda will be released once abstract submissions close. Where? Inverloch Community Hub, 16 Abeckett St, Inverloch (Map 1)

9:00 Arrival – Check in at the Registration table (grab a cup of tea or coffee)

9:20 Presentations begin

9:20 – 9:25 Welcome and Housekeeping

9:25 – 9:40 Welcome to Country

9:40 – 10:00 BirdLife Australia’s Dr. Grainne Maguire will present the highlights of the Beach- nesting Birds project that have occurred in the past two years 2017-2019

10:00 – 11:00 Hear from the Director of Nature’s Valley Trust, South Africa, about their amazing conservation program for beach-nesting birds. This is a great opportunity to learn what is happening across the shores for species facing very similar threats

11:00 – 11:30 Morning Tea

11:30 – 13:05 Six presentations including one from Parks Victoria about the conservation of Hooded Plovers in Mornington Peninsula National Park including the transition to a dogs prohibited park; one from Museum Victoria about Hooded Plover genetics, and one from Tweed Shire Council together with BirdLife Northern Rivers talking about their proactive approach to conserving Beach Stone-curlews and Pied Oystercatchers.

13:05 – 14:15 Lunch

14:15 – 16:45 Field trips to a range of locations within a 5-15 minute drive from Inverloch (see program below for detail)

18:30 - 22:00 Optional Dinner: Harman Wines, 612 Korumburra-Inverloch Rd, Wattle Bank Just 15 minutes from the conference venue (Map 2), Harman Wines Restaurant offers a beautiful, relaxed setting for our event dinner. There will be a selection of cheese platters followed by wood fired pizzas. The dinner is $30 a head paid in advance. Drinks are at your own expense on the night. You are welcome to bring a partner who is not attending the conference and can indicate this during the registration process.

www.birdlife.org.au/beach

DAY 2 Saturday 25th May Day two consists of conference presentations followed by workshops that will allow you to build on your skills and knowledge across a range of themes related to the Beach-nesting Birds conservation and monitoring. Where? Inverloch Community Hub, 16 Abeckett St, Inverloch (Map 1)

9:00 Arrival – Check in at the Registration table (grab tea or coffee), Silent Auction opens

9:20 Presentations begin

9:20 – 9:30 Acknowledgement of Country, Welcome and Housekeeping

9:30 – 10:40 Four talk slots including Nature Parks about predator control and beach- nesting bird success in a fox free environment, and a range of student talks including embryonic auditory cues and research on the factors driving Crested Tern survival rates

10:40 – 11:10 Morning Tea

11:10 – 12:40 Five talk slots including BirdLife Australia on banded bird movements and sex-biased dispersal of plovers, creation of beach-nesting bird breeding island habitat within Lakes, and University of on coastal geomorphology

12:40 – 13:40 Lunch

13:40 – 16:15 Workshop Sessions

13:40 – 14:40 Workshop one (choose from a range of workshop topics, see program below). At least four workshops will run simultaneously and you will be assigned to one of your top preferences

14:40 – 15:15 Afternoon tea and Silent Auction closes at 15:00

15:15 - 16:15 Workshop two (choose from a range of workshop topics, see program below). At least four workshops will run simultaneously and you will be assigned to one of your top preferences

16:15 – 16:30 Silent Auction winners announced and Closing Remarks

Silent Auction and Displays We will be running a Silent Auction on Saturday the 25th to raise money for Beach-nesting Bird research. There will be a number of exciting items for auction including artworks, crafts, books, metal birds and much, much more. Items will be on display until 3 pm on Saturday, with winners announced at the end of the day. Payment does not need to occur on the day.

If you have posters, banners, photographs or brochures and materials that you would like to display, we will be making a designated space for this. Just be sure to let us know what you plan on bringing so we can make sure there is enough room.

Friday Field Trip Options During the online registration process, you will be asked to rank your order of preference for attending the field trips below. There are 5 trips to choose from (see Map 3) and we will do our best to assign you to your top preference. Each field trip will be led by knowledgeable local guides. Maps of the starting points will be posted around the venue on the day. Limited carpooling will be available.

Field Trip Description Notes Inverloch surf Visit the nearby surf beach to see the local Hooded 3 minute drive from beaches Plover nesting sites and listen to an on-site talk by Bass venue. Easy walk Coast Shire about site management and their along sandy beaches. commitment to helping the Hooded Plovers and other Wear suitable study beach-nesters in the area. The walk will also go past a shoes and suitable lagoon with a diversity of waterbirds. clothing. Bunurong coast This stunning drive leaves Inverloch and heads west 12 minute drive from toward . We will stop at several of the venue. Moderate little beaches to go for a walk. The rock formations in walks, short but this area are of great archaeological interest and are relatively steep up where new dinosaur fossils are being discovered to this and down access very day! A number of the small cove beaches are paths to beaches. important nesting areas for Hooded Plovers. Wear suitable study shoes for rock rambling and suitable clothing for bush environments. Screw Creek Screw Creek loop walk is very pretty and wanders 6 minute drive from Inverloch through a range of coastal and wetland habitats with venue. lots of birds to see. The walk meanders up a small hill Easy/moderate walk. with a great view of the estuary. It was this estuary Wear suitable shoes where a beach stone-curlew spent much of its time a for beach walking. few years back! Wear suitable clothing. Andersons Inlet is a large estuary that attracts many 8 minute drive. Easy Maher’s Landing migratory shorebirds. Maher's Landing is a particularly walk – mostly able to great spot to view a range of resident and migratory view the site from the shorebirds, as well as waterbirds. carpark. Wonthaggi has some amazing birding spots including 21 minute drive. Easy wetlands Baxters wetland which is a small lake with bird hide, walk. Wear suitable situated in a revegetated coal mining area. There are sturdy shoes for bush both wetland and woodland birds to see here. If time track and suitable permits or birding is slow at the wetland, the nearby clothing. rifle range is another great hotspot. Members of BirdLife Bass Coast will lead this walk and share their wealth of local knowledge.

Saturday Workshop Session Topics On Saturday after lunch, you will have the opportunity to attend and participate in two workshops of your choice. Four different topics will run simultaneously for an hour each, followed by afternoon tea, then another series of four workshop sessions. We break out in to smaller rooms for each of these sessions. We need to seek your preferences for the different topics on offer to determine if all topics will run on the day, and also so as not to exceed seating capacity for each workshop. This may mean that you are given your second and third preferences, or on rare occasions third and fourth preferences, because of logistical constraints.

Workshop session: Description: Bird photography Tips on bird photography from expert photographers focusing on birds and how to capture their unique behaviours, including ethical considerations. Note: you don’t need to bring a camera. Migratory Shorebird ID Whether you are new to bird ID or would like to continue to brush up on session your skills, the migratory shorebird ID session always provides new tips and exposure to a suite of bird species that are renowned for being challenging to identify! This session will be led by BirdLife Australia’s Dan Lees. Tern monitoring and A number of tern researchers from BirdLife Australia, including Aleisa identification Lamanna and Emma Stephens from South Australia and Deb Sullivan from , will provide tips on identifying the range of terns likely to be seen in Southern Australia, and then provide advice on safely monitoring nesting tern colonies including describing the range of breeding and courtship behaviours you might observe. There will be lots of opportunities to ask questions too. My Beach Bird portal Spend time with Kasun Ekanayake from the Beach-nesting Birds team to data entry, viewing and learn how to use the portal for recording your observations and for interpretation following the progress of the monitored pairs over the season. You can ask any question you would like, including queries about what the data fields mean, what they are used for and how we use your data after it has been entered. If there is interest, we can also step through the biennial count portal in Birdata. Specialised training in A rare opportunity for volunteers to have a comprehensive session with communication with a communications expert. Grahame Collier’s session will delve further beach users into communication techniques, provide tips and tools for processing information and delivering your message to beach users effectively. An opportunity to learn from other volunteers and Grahame, chat about communication with the public, and even role play sessions on how to best approach beach users.

Workshop session: Description: Communications and Emily Gregg from RMIT University will talk about the research occurring messaging around social within her lab on how best to communicate and create messaging to behaviour change to change social behaviours for the benefit of threatened species. There is a improve Threatened science behind communications that can assist with the effectiveness of Species conservation your communications campaigns. There will be plenty of opportunities for discussions in this session. Beach-nesting bird New to volunteering with the Beach-nesting Birds project, or time for a behaviours and refresher? BirdLife Australia’s Renee Mead will present on all you need monitoring training to know to monitor and interpret the behaviours of your local beach- session nesting birds including oystercatchers, red-capped plovers and hooded plovers. Feel free to ask any questions you’ve ever wanted to ask! Practical session on how Setting up signage and fencing, or thinking about how best to protect a to set up nest site breeding site from different threats and user pressures, can be more protection and challenging that it appears. Come along and find out more about the considerations to be considerations to be made, learn about the best knots to use and run made through some scenarios on nest site protection. This session will be jointly run by Grainne from the Beach-nesting Birds team and some volunteers who spend a lot of time fencing up different nesting sites. Advocacy training: tips Andrew Hunter from BirdLife Australia has had a lot of experience for effectively influencing decision making to ensure the protection of key bird habitats. influencing change He was part of a successful campaign to save Christmas Island from a proposed phosphate mine and is currently working on a number of major campaigns to help protect Toondah Harbour, Belfast Coastal Reserve and other critical bird habitats from irreversible habitat loss. Andrew will provide lots of tips on how to positively impact policy and decision making, both proactively and reactively, to ensure we don’t lose the beach-nesting birds or their habitats we are working so hard to protect.

Sunday Field trips On Sunday we are offering some longer field trips for people interested in seeing more of the Gippsland region and the amazing birds and habitats it has to offer (see Map 4). This is a particularly stunning part of the Victorian coast, with iconic sites including Wilsons Promontory and Phillip Island, and lesser known scenic beauties at Sandy Point and .

Ideally, groups of a maximum of 30 will attend each trip on offer. It is likely you will be able to attend your first preference of trip, but we ask you rank order of preference in case one trip is oversubscribed. We will send an email a fortnight before the conference to confirm the trip you have been assigned and provide more details about meeting places and the agenda for the day.

There is no cost to attend Sunday, however if you would like to pre-order a packed lunch, this can be purchased for $9 in advance. Lunches will be given to the field trip leader to hand out. Please bring your own lunch if you haven’t ordered one as there won’t be an opportunity to stop to purchase lunch on the day. You should pack plenty of water for the day, bring along binoculars and a camera if you wish, and wear appropriate clothing for the weather and walking shoes. It may be wise to have a light raincoat just in case, as well as sunscreen.

Field trip location Details Phillip Island Drive times: 52 minutes from Inverloch one way.

Phillip Island Nature Parks are generously providing a bus for 25 people to tour Phillip Island and visit sites of significance to bird conservation. You can hear from the local ranger all about their long-term efforts to protect Hooded Plovers and a range of other species, including the famous little penguins! If you wish to drive your own car, we can provide details on the planned stops for the day.

Low to moderate fitness required, a range of beach walks and site visits.

Estimated trip times: 8 am – 4:30 pm. Attendance for the penguin parade that evening is an option. This will mean a later finish time for this trip. Wilsons Promontory Drive times: 1 hour 15 minutes from Inverloch one way.

Wilsons Promontory is one of Victoria’s most beautiful national parks. Its stunning heathlands and coastline can be enjoyed on the drive in to . We plan to visit several important Hooded Plover sites including Picnic Bay, Squeaky beach and Cotters beach, the latter of which is a favourite flocking site of Hooded Plovers. You will have an opportunity to learn about the Sea Spurge removal project occurring to help salvage hoodie habitat at Squeaky beach.

We will try to organise carpooling so that fewer cars are needed.

Moderate fitness required for the different beaches. Picnic bay has a steep access path to the beach.

Estimated trip times: 8 am to 4:30 pm. It is possible to leave earlier if you take your own vehicle.

Field trip location Details Sandy Point and Waratah Drive times: 47 minutes from Inverloch, one way. Bay Sandy Point opens out on to Shallow Inlet and looks east across to Wilsons Promontory. The walk along the spit reveals an amazing and expansive stretch of habitat for beach-nesting birds and abundant sand flats on the interior that are a favourite foraging area for migratory shorebirds. The ocean beach on the southern side of the spit is a favourite for flocks of Sanderling. At this time of year we are likely to see lots of Double-banded Plovers and wintering flocks of Hooded Plovers. After a long walk at Sandy Point, we will then head to Waratah Bay to see a very different coastline, with coarse sands and rock platforms and outcrops.

High fitness required as lots of beach walking involved.

Estimated trip times: 8 am to 4 pm. It is possible to leave earlier if you take your own vehicle.

Kilcunda – Powlett River Drive times: 25 minutes from Inverloch, one way. Mouth and Desalination plant We will visit the Powlett River Mouth within the Kilcunda Coastal Reserve, which is a gorgeous estuary that opens on to a wild and wind-swept ocean beach with an extensive dune system. In winter, it is likely that Hooded Plovers will flock here. We will also visit Williamsons beach and the Desalination plant, enjoying the range of birds using the heathland and plantings that have occurred around the desalination plant.

Moderate to high fitness needed as beach walking is involved.

Estimated trip times: 8 am to 2:30 - 3 pm. It is possible to leave earlier if you take your own vehicle.

Maps

Inverloch is approximately 2 hours 20 minutes (160 km) drive East of Melbourne. The venue is circled in red below.

Map 1. Inverloch Community Hub (venue for Friday and Saturday)

Map 2. Harman Wines, Friday dinner venue.

Map 3. Locations of Friday afternoon field trip locations relative to Inverloch. Red star represents Inverloch surf beaches; Blue star represents Bunurong Coastal drive; Yellow star represents Screw Creek; Purple star represents Andersons Inlet Maher’s Landing; and Green star represents Wonthaggi Wetlands.

Map 4. Sunday field trip locations: Green star is at the Phillip Island location; Purple star at Wilsons Promontory; Yellow star at Sandy Point, and Blue star at Powlett River/Desalination plant.

Accommodation

There are many accommodation options available in Inverloch. There are also nearby towns with accommodation that would not be too distant to drive from each day, including Wonthaggi (13 km, 13 mins by car), Cape Paterson (13 km, 15 mins by car), Leongatha (around 27 km, 22 mins by car) and Venus Bay (28 km, 25 mins by car).

The nearest caravan parks are: • Big4 Inverloch Holiday Park - 2 Cuttriss St, Inverloch Camping ($106/2 nights) and variety of cabins available, check website for rates: http://www.inverlochholidaypark.com.au/ • Inverloch Foreshore camping - Esplanade, Inverloch Powered site 2 people $47/night, check website for rates: www.inverlochforeshorecamping.com.au/ • RACV Holiday Resort – 4 star hotel, 70 Cape Paterson- Inverloch Rd, Inverloch Caravan sites (no tents) and variety of cabins available, check website for rates: https://www.racv.com.au/travel-leisure/racv-resorts.html (03) 5674 0000 • Cape Paterson Caravan Park – self-contained ensuite cabins sleep 6 ($85-$130/ night) and camping tents and vans - max 6 people ($30-$64/ night), check website for rates: https://cpcp.com.au/# (03) 5674 4507

For hotels try www.booking.com or www.wotif.com

For renting a holiday house and perhaps sharing with a number of people coming from your region, visit: http://www.inverlochholidayhomes.com.au/ https://inverloch.ljhooker.com.au/search/holiday-for-rent-in-inverloch-vic-3996-au/page-2 http://www.stayz.com.au/ www.airbnb.com.au

Please note that most of the holiday homes leased by Real Estate agencies will provide linen at an additional cost, it is usually not included in the house booking – check carefully!

Funder Acknowledgements The 2019 Beach-nesting Birds Conference is proudly funded and supported by BirdLife Australia. have generously provided and paid for the venue. Phillip Island Nature Parks are kindly providing a bus and tour of Phillip Island as one of the Sunday field trip options. A regional land partnership with Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority via the Australian Government’s National Landcare Programme is sponsoring a number of attendees coming from distant areas including Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, Western Victoria, Otway Coast, Surf Coast and Bellarine, and supporting the travel costs of our workshop facilitators. Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board is sponsoring attendance of a number of volunteers from the Fleurieu Peninsula.

www.birdlife.org.au/beach