This project is on hold, while I focus on some other ones.
These are very interesting wetlands with surrounding sizable areas of forest and open grassland, near Coopernook in NSW. They were opened to the public in 2013 (I had some inside knowledge and started visiting in 2011). Initially my visits were intermittent but now they are much more frequent
Cattai Wetlands is one of the most reliable places in "southern" NSW for Comb-crested Jacanas (locals might reject the term "southern"). I find them on about three quarters of my visits to site. They breed there too (I have seen birds with chicks in tow, and immature birds at other times). There nowadays are no reliable sites from any further south (they used to breed at Mulbring, but not for a long time now). Very occasionally, a pair of Black-necked Storks drop in - their territory is quite large and includes many wetlands in the Harrington/Coopernook area. But there are many other good birds to be found at Cattai, some of them much more reliably than the Storks. After 62 visits (up to August 2018), my bird list for Cattai Wetlands is 143 species. Click here to see my Cattai bird list.
Latest news
I'm helping Rob Kyte develop a set of information signs for the new bird hide. There will be two large (very large!) general signs, with 20 species each of waterbirds and woodland birds, and three other more specialised signs (about Jacanas, Black-necked Storks, and long-tailed wrens).
Older news
A few years ago I helped prepare a brochure about the birds of Cattai (click here to see version 1); in March 2018 we revised it slightly (the changes were minor, e.g. now the map shows the new bird hide). Five information signs have also been developed, for which I was the consultant (on behalf of Hunter Bird Observers Club). They have been installed at strategic locations around the site.One sign was about Jacanas, another about Storks, and the other three covered wetland, woodland and grassland birds respectively.
Ashley Carlson published a paper in the 2015 issue of HBOC's journal The Whistler, documenting Manning Valley-Great Lakes Birdwatchers (MVGLB) 's Cattai surveys during 7-8 years of visits. It gives an excellent representation of why Cattai is so important and interesting. Here's a copy of the paper, made available with Ashley's permission.