Birds from interstate and abroad flock to Werribee Treatment Plant amid crippling drought
Most try and keep their distance from the Werribee Treatment Plant, however it’s recently been dubbed the “Kakadu of the south” as birds from interstate and abroad make the journey south. This is why.
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It might seem like an unlikely paradise but the Werribee Treatment Plant is anything but on the nose for Australian birds right now — so much so, it’s being dubbed “the Kakadu of the south”.
With much of the country now in drought, birds — particularly water fowl — are flying more than 1000km to find sanctuary at Melbourne Water’s sewage treatment plant.
Experts say birds are being seen at the 10,500ha site that rarely, if ever, venture this far south.
“They are coming from South Australia, central and northern New South Wales and Queensland,” said birdwatcher Maarten Hulzebosch.
“When all the other states are not very suitable they come to the treatment plant because it is an area where there is permanent water. A lot of water fowl end up here and find refuge, when other areas of Australia are in drought.”
Tens of thousands of pink-eared ducks made Werribee their temporary home during the millennium drought, and then flew off when it broke, he said.
Starved of feed in their usual northern habitats, flocks of wild budgies had also recently been seen on southern Victorian farmland and near Werribee, where they could find plenty of seed, Mr Hulzebosch said.
“They have just coming further and further south to find food,” he said.
Migratory wading birds from northern Russia and Alaska and a solitary male tufted duck from the northern hemisphere — never before seen in the Australian wild — were among more than 300 species of birds spied at the plant, he said.
“This tufted duck migrated south more than double the distance the species would normally migrate, and it came to Werribee,” Mr Hulzebosch said.
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Melbourne Water service delivery general manager Nerina Di Lorenzo said the Werribee plant, which treated more than half of Melbourne’s sewage, was now an internationally recognised bird habitat.
“Some fly thousands of kilometre to experience our wetlands fertilised by more than 120 years of sewage. Our site rivals the famous Kakadu National Park for diversity and abundance of bird life and is renowned throughout the world’s birdwatching community,” Dr Di Lorenzo said.
“On any day you’ll find bird watchers patiently waiting to catch a glimpse of a brolga or an orange-bellied parrot. Or, if they’re lucky, a rare or endangered species.”