Commonwealth of Australia

Australia is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world’s sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the northeast, tropical savannas in the north, and mountain ranges in the southeast. The desert or semi-arid land commonly known as the outback makes up by far the largest portion of land. However, Australia has 10% of the global permanent meadows and pastureland. The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and extends for over 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles). Mount Augustus, claimed to be the world’s largest monolith, is located in Western Australia. At 2,228 m (7,310 ft), Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland.

Eastern Australia is marked by the Great Dividing Range, which runs parallel to the coast of Queensland, New South Wales and much of Victoria. The name is not strictly accurate, because parts of the range consist of low hills, and the highlands are typically no more than 1,600m (5,200 ft) in height. The coastal uplands and a belt of Brigalow grasslands lie between the coast and the mountains, while inland of the dividing range are large areas of grassland and shrubland. These include the western plains of New South Wales, and the Mitchell Grass Downs and Mulga Lands of inland Queensland. The northernmost point of the mainland is the tropical Cape York Peninsula.

The Great Red Desert – ©Murray Foubister CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The landscapes of the Top End and the Gulf Country, with their tropical climate, include forest, woodland, wetland, grassland, rainforest and desert. At the northwest corner of the continent are the sandstone cliffs and gorges of The Kimberley, and below that the Pilbara. The Victoria Plains tropical savanna lies south of the Kimberley and Arnhem Land savannas, forming a transition between the coastal savannas and the interior deserts. At the heart of the country are the uplands of central Australia. Prominent features of the centre and south include Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock), the famous sandstone monolith, and the inland Simpson, Tirari and Sturt Stony, Gibson, Great Sandy, Tanami, and Great Victoria deserts, with the famous Nullarbor Plain on the southern coast. The Western Australian mulga shrublands lie between the interior deserts and Mediterranean-climate Southwest Australia.

Surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans, Australia is separated from Asia by the Arafura and Timor seas, with the Coral Sea lying off the Queensland coast, and the Tasman Sea lying between Australia and New Zealand. The world’s smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australia, owing to its size and isolation, is often dubbed the ‘island continent’ and is sometimes considered the world’s largest island. Australia has over 34,000 kilometres (21,ooo miles) of coastline (excluding all offshore islands).

Great Barrier Reef near Cairns – Ank Kumar CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states and ten territories. Its population of about 27 million is highly urbanised (probably the most urbanised of any country) and is heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Canberra is the nation’s capital, and its most populous cities are the state capitals:  Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, (Canberra), Hobart and Darwin. Australia is culturally diverse and has one of the highest foreign-born populations in the world. Its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade relations are crucial to the country’s economy, which generates its income from various sources: predominately services (including banking, real estate and international education) as well as mining, manufacturing and agriculture. It ranks highly for quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, civil liberties, political rights and per capita income.

Birding Australia

Australia is the only country that is also an entire continent. It’s not surprising therefore, that it has such a wide range of bird species and families and such exceptional numbers of endemics. For most visitors it will be necessary to get to grips with whole orders of birds not familiar from travels elsewhere and the bird life is truly spectacular. Given the size of the country, the vast internal desserts and dividing mountains and that it is an island, it’s not surprising that there are so many endemics, nor that speciation has continued creating many local endemics too. East and west forms for example, such as Eastern  Spinebill and Western Spinebill. Long-ranging species such as waders and wildfowl are mostly in common with other parts of the world but the species that do not migrate or range widely can become isolated and slowly develop differently and in dependently, so a state like Tasmania has many unique species.

Fortunately some local birders have been contributing introductions to individual Australian states – most of which could swallow half of Europe and have room for more. Birding is a very well-established pastime and plenty of Aussie birders have been exported and can be found leading groups all over the world! Similarly there are a growing number of websites dedicated to birding in Australia.

Jamison Valley Blue Mountains – ©Diliff CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

While many Australians have read or heard about environmental catastrophes around the world, they have ignored the warning signs at home and now face the loss of many unique and beautiful birds. In 2001 7.5 million native birds died needlessly. Recent research shows that of the c.1000 species, a quarter are now threatened – a great many native birds are facing extinction. For instance, the beautiful Scarlet Robin is now found in only 49% of its former range, and the number of sightings of the Nankeen Kestrel have decreased by approximately 50% as have sightings of the majestic Wedge-tailed Eagle. Similar stories can be told of other species recorded in the Bird Atlas, a survey that maps distribution and abundance of every grid square in the country, produced with the assistance of over 8,000 Birds Australia volunteers. Australia is waking up to the damage done by invasive species and feral populations of non-natives and are trying to eradicate the most destructive threats to native species.

Birds Australia continues to seek your assistance in building awareness of the plight of Australia’s unique native species. For more information on Birds Australia please visit their website