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Australian bird habitats:
Intertidal wetlands/mangrove

Aboriginal names: "egaie" = Mangrove; "nandaloo" = Mangrove tree

Description of habitat

Intertidal wetlands attract a large number of bird species, because they form different types of habitat at different times. While dry, waders can hunt by digging into the mud/sand with their bills (for comparison see also the page describing mudflats), while when wet fish hunters populate the shallow water. Many intertidal wetlands are overgrown with mangrove, a family of plant species with sufficient salt resistivity to survive in these conditions. Tropical intertidal wetlands often also have pandanus on their fringes.

Intertidal wetlands are often found in estuaries of major rivers that can also form 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

Black-necked Stork hunting in intertidal wetland with mangrove at Urunga Heads, NSW ; here one can see how terms describing various habitats overlap, because the Black-necked Stork is in fact standing in a mudflat

One of the main food sources for predatory birds such as egrets and herons are these mudcrabs

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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