ON THE WING
The most harried and hindered bird of our beaches — the hooded plover (pictured) — looked remarkably relaxed when I found a family of them one afternoon, strutting under a bright blue sky, gentle waves lapping at the shoreline close to their nest.
In the past I had only seen the tiny plovers amid throngs of people, the “hoodies” on their short, stout legs trying to keep clear of not just the human beach users, but of dogs, horses and on several occasions, four-wheel-drives and quad bikes. Here, on the shoreline of Stephens Bay, fronting the Southern Ocean at the far tip of the South-West Wilderness, there was not another person, or dog, or tyre track in sight, save for a small party of swimmers, myself among them, who had reached the shore by dinghy.
We had been dropped off by the luxury tourist vessel, The Odalisque, after being invited on its delivery voyage to the SouthWest from Hobart for the start of the tourist season. And the party of outdoor types, hiking over a hill after anchoring in Spain Bay, was determined to show the hooded plovers, and their three chicks, some respect.
The hooded plover, like other birds that nest on beaches, have suffered dramatic falls in numbers as more and more people have taken to the sands, reflecting population increase in coastal areas and the desirability of a home close to the sea.
In Tasmania, volunteers from BirdLife Tasmania stage “Dog’s breakfast” events to educate the public about the danger of dogs to breeding birds, and hand out free dog leads to encourage dog owners to keep their pets under control in the nesting season.
It’s only when you visit a truly pristine beach, dotted with the plovers, that the natural values of this environment can be truly appreciated.
The Stephens Bay beach forms an impossibly long curve of white sand, the rhythm of the lapping ocean a background sound to the mewing of pacific gulls, and the piping of pied oystercatchers darting in straight, direct flight just above the undulating waves. Distracted by the sparkling sea, I strayed a little too close to the plovers and they scurried away.
The 2km hike from one end of Stephens Beach to the other had not been about birds at all. It was to view possibly the highest and most extensive Aboriginal middens in Tasmania.
One of these has been shaped over thousands of years by winds coming in off the sea into a sugar loaf, or as one in our party described it, a “pyramid”.
No four-wheel tracks here, or discarded beers cans, as I had seen along another “remote” beach on the North-West coast.
And hooded plovers breaking into a trot as I approached without feeling the need to fly in panic.