The ‘crazy bird lady’ standing between Sydney’s seabirds and extinction

Sydneysider Julie Keating had a career in finance and planned to spend her retirement travelling the world. A pair of seabirds set her on a very different path.

About 10 years ago, a pair of Australian pied oystercatchers nested outside her home in Maianbar, on the southern shore of Port Hacking near the Royal National Park.

For the past decade, Julie Keating has spent most of her waking hours guarding seabirds on the Maianbar foreshore.Credit: Louise Kennerley

One morning, Keating woke up to the sound of the parent birds calling for their chicks. She saw immediately that the nest had been destroyed by feral foxes, but it took longer for the parents to accept it.

“They walked up and down and called for their chicks for a couple of hours until they ran out of beach and realised they weren’t there,” Keating recalls, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“People tend to think that animals will find the people that will help them. Putting those eggs right out the front of my place just as I’d retired got me involved in what they need.”

Instead of travelling the world, Keating has spent most of the past decade roaming the shore near her home, guarding resident and migratory seabirds.

The oystercatchers are endangered in NSW. The tidal flats at Maianbar are also a southern summer home for the critically endangered far eastern curlew, which breeds in China and Russia and flies to Australia for the southern spring, and endangered bar-tailed godwits, which hold the record for the longest non-stop migration.

Keating’s vigil starts in July when the eastern curlews arrive and ends in March when they leave. On sunny days she spends hours on the beach, often starting from 6am, wearing a hat and long sleeves for sun protection but shorts and no shoes so she can wade. On rainy days, she dons her good raincoat and pops down at regular intervals.

Julie Keating with volunteer John Broughton watching seabirds on the tidal flats at Port Hacking.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Some locals see her as “the guardian angel of those birds”; to others, she’s “the crazy bird lady”.

While foxes remain one of the biggest problems, Keating is on guard for humans and their dogs.

If people don’t look where they are going, they can easily trample chicks underfoot. Sometimes, children play ball games on the tidal flats.

When people spread out with their nipper pumpers to collect fishing bait, they are competing with the seabirds for food and territory, and can also cut them off from being able to safely return to the beach.

Bar-tailed godwits at Port Hacking – this species holds the record for the longest non-stop migration.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Dogs are an even bigger threat. “When the little chicks are running around, to a dog, they look like a little ball or a little squeaky toy,” Keating says. “Then the dog just naturally chases, and more often than not, when it’s in chase mode, you can’t get it back. If the dogs grab the chick, then the chicks, being so delicate, are just dead.”

Even leashed dogs are a problem, Keating says, because they scare the birds, who move to avoid the threat, wind up in another bird’s territory, and can end up fighting and killing each other.

A pied oystercatcher feeding its chick at the Maianbar foreshore. Keating says it’s only the third time in 30 years that the chicks have hatched on a public beach.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Sutherland Shire Council has signs banning dogs at each end of the beach so they can be seen by people arriving by road or boat. There are other dog beaches nearby, including at Bundeena and Stanwell Park.

At Keating’s instigation, the council also installed a fenced area to provide a safe area on the sand spit and a sign asking people to take a detour.

But when people ignore the signs, Keating has to brace herself for a conversation. She tries to connect with people through the stories of the birds – for example, the tagged godwit that flew 13,500 kilometres from Alaska to Tasmania in only 11 days – an average of more than 50km/h – and lost almost half its body weight along the way.

There are signs to ban dogs at each end of the sand spit.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Sometimes people are amenable; other times they scoff at the request or argue. The signs are frequently vandalised or stolen – but the council has given her a stash of replacements, so they’re never missing for long.

Keating is dreading New Year’s Eve because people usually gather along the sand spit, burning charcoal barbecues, drinking alcohol and getting clumsy with it, playing loud music and letting off illegal fireworks.

Keating says Maianbar and Towra Nature Reserve in Botany Bay are the only two places for eastern curlews in Greater Sydney, and more protection is warranted.

She is hoping to partner with a university to do a proper population count and hopes to prompt a proper environmental assessment of the commercial nipper pumpers at the far end of the tidal flats.

“The biggest threat for all our migratory birds is this human disturbance factor that’s basically taking away their territory, their habitat,” Keating says. “They can’t survive without it, but to people, it’s just one more recreational space, and that seems to always get prioritised over what the birds need.”

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