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Australian bird habitats:
Estuary

Aboriginal names: "coorombong"

Description of habitat

Estuaries are the widening channels of rivers as they approach the sea. The salinity of water in estuaries can vary drastically, in particular in response to strong oceanic tides. At low tide, when the water flow downriver is dominant, the water will be fresh. At high tide, when the sea pushes water into an estuary, the water will be brackish or even saline. Estuaries offer a wide range of smaller habitats, including e.g. intertidal wetlands/mangrove, mudflats and/or saltmarshes.

Bird species found in this type of habitat or plant

This is not necessarily a complete list. We display here some examples of bird species found by us in this kind of habitat or plant. Hover your cursor on thumbnails to see names of species; click on thumbnail to go to the page describing the species.

Photos

Wide-angle view into the estuary of the south arm of the Manning River near Old Bar, NSW; the view goes across a salt marsh, which is an important bird habitat in its own right

Wide-angle view into the estuary of the north arm of the Manning River at Manning Point, NSW; part of the coastline visible in the distance is covered by mangrove

These pages are largely based on our own observations and those of our contributors. The structure of these bird pages is explained HERE. For more salient facts on any bird species please refer to a field guide.

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