The Peel-Harvey Catchment Council (PHCC) recently hosted the inaugural Wetlands Weekender, a mini festival that celebrated the wonders of our Peel-Yalgorup Ramsar Wetland System, which includes the Peel-Harvey Estuary, the freshwater Lakes McLarty and Mealup and the string of 12 saline Yalgorup Lakes including Lake Clifton and Lake Preston and the amazing wildlife that inhabits these waterways.
The festival program ran from 11th to 13th October and included a variety of fun activities including an art exhibition, birdwatching, cultural storytelling, a citizen science event, a movie night, children’s activities and a wetland tour with Mandurah Cruises.
The festival was planned to coincide with World Migratory Bird Day, which this year fell on Saturday 12th October for the southern hemisphere. This date is significant for the Peel- Yalgorup Wetlands as it aligns with the beginning of the migratory bird season.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of birds make the epic journey from as far away as Alaska and Siberia to Australia, a staggering distance of up to 12,500km, where they will spend the summer months before making the return trip.
PHCC partnered with businesses, community organisations and local government with funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program to bring the festival program together. Special activities themed around the beautiful, rare and endangered birds of the wetland were therefore the centrepieces of the festival.
“We plan to build this festival over the coming years into a program that attracts not only locals but visitors to our region. Next year is a significant year for the Peel-Yalgorup Wetland site. It will be 30 years since the site has been listed as wetland of international significance under the Ramsar Convention and the festival will be a fantastic way to celebrate this milestone and our incredible wetland,” said Caroline Knight, Chair of PHCC.
Wonders of the Wetland
Wonders of the Wetland, gave kids and adults alike the chance to see what lives in and on the amazing Peel-Harvey estuary. Held at the Nairns bird-hide at the end of Peel Parade Coodanup, people gazed through binoculars at the birds and through microscopes at the tiny invertebrates that live in the estuary. Ornithologist (bird expert), Bill Rutherford helped attendees identify the birds, many of which may have just arrived from Siberia while Noongar community leader Theo Kearing joined in the celebrations and told dream time stories of the wetland.
Overwintering and Flyway
The launch of the Overwintering Exhibition, held at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre was the star event of the Wetlands Weekender Festival, showcasing two art projects themed about the migratory shore birds. The Overwintering Project and The Flyway Print Exchange Project featured over 150 works from local, national and international artists celebrating shorebirds and their wetland habitat. The exhibition will continue until 24th November.
The Flock
Over 50 children and families joined this fun art activity, painting 200 wooden cut-out stencils of shorebirds depicting the birds that make the miraculous return journey between the Arctic and Australia each year. An amazing feat considering some are so very tiny, like the Red-necked Stint, which only weighs about 25g, similar to a Tim Tam biscuit. The painted flock helped raise awareness of our migratory shorebirds by becoming a travelling art installation that ‘migrated’ to different parts of Peel-Harvey Estuary over the course of the Wetlands Weekender Festival.
Pave the Way
Pave the Way is a community Clean-Up Event that has been running each year since 2014. The event clears the Coodanup Foreshore of litter to pave the way for migratory shorebirds which arrive on the shorelines of the Peel-Yalgorup Wetland System at this time of year. Over 50 people came down to Coodanup and worked in pairs to collect and audit litter. The data collected will later be entered into the Tangaroa Blue Marine Debris Database where it will be used to understand the level of litter contamination of a site and identify effective means to reduce the litter.
Wetland Boat Tour
The Wetland Boat Tour was a perfect end to the Wetlands Weekender. Attendees spent a sunny Sunday afternoon exploring the various wetland locations on board Mandurah Cruises Dancing Dolphin. Tour guides Kallan and Marlon Nannup immersed attendees in stories from the local indigenous culture. Zoologist Sarah Way and Peel-Harvey Catchment Council’s Science Advisor Steve Fisher shared information on the wetland wildlife and the international significance of the Peel-Yalgorup System which is listed under the Ramsar Convention as a Wetland of International importance. Many birds were spotted including Ospreys, Rednecked Stints, Whimbrels, Grey Plovers and even an endangered Eastern Curlew
Movie night
The Wetlands Weekender Movie Night was scheduled to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day — Saturday October 12th. This year’s World Migratory Bird Day was dedicated to highlighting the problem of plastic pollution. ‘Protect Birds: Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution’. The film Albatross was screened at Make Place. This highly provocative film that conveys the heartbreaking consequences of plastic litter on seabirds. The film was followed by a discussion on current conservation projects operating within the Peel- Harvey and ways for community to get involved and be part of the solution.
MORE INFORMATION
This project is supported by Peel- Harvey Catchment Council through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.
Phone (08) 6369 8800 or visit www.peel-harvey.org.au
We acknowledge the Noongar people as Traditional Custodians of this land and pay our respects to all Elders past and present.
This article was first published in the Peel Magazine, Spring/Summer – vol 5.2 – to read and download the full magazine, click here.