Table Of ContentSurvey guidelines for
Australia’s threatened birds
Guidelines for detecting birds listed as threatened under the
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
i
Disclaimer
The views and opinions contained in this document are not necessarily those of the Australian Government. The contents of this document have been
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An erratum was added to page 131 in April 2017.
AcknowledgementS
This report was prepared by Michael Magrath, Michael Weston, Penny Olsen and Mark Antos, and updated in
2008 by Ashley Herrod.
We are grateful to Birds Australia’s Research and Conservation Committee, which attended a workshop on
survey standards and reviewed this document: Barry Baker, John Blyth, Allan Burbidge, Hugh Ford, Stephen
Garnett, Henry Nix, and Hugh Possingham.
Valuable contributions were also received from Simon Attwood, Jack Baker, David Baker-Gabb, Brent Barrett,
Bill Brown, Belinda Cale, Peter Cale, Mike Clarke, Andrew Dunn, Don Franklin, Stephen Garnett, David
Geering, Mark Holdsworth, Wayne Houston, Andrew Ley, Richard Loyn, Michael Mathieson, Peter Menkhorst,
Trish Mooney, Brenda Newbey, Mike Newman, Lloyd Nielsen, Carol Palmer, Marcus Pickett, Owen Price,
David Priddel, Ken Rogers, Geoff Smith, Jonathon Starks, William Steele, Chris Tzaros, Rick Webster and Eve
Woolmore. We also thank Joe Benschemesh, Harry Recher, Richard Noske, Martin Denny (NSW Association
of Consultants), Brett Lane, Roger Jaensch and Sylvana Maas.
contentS
How to use tHese guiDelines 1
introDuCtion 3
Determining presenCe 4
plAnning AnD Design of surveys 6
Conducting surveys in six steps 6
DeteCtion metHoDs for birDs 14
survey guiDelines for AustrAliA’s tHreAteneD birDs 21
Abbott’s booby 23
Amsterdam albatross 25
Antarctic tern (Indian Ocean) 26
Antarctic tern (New Zealand) 28
Antipodean albatross 30
Australian lesser noddy 32
Australian painted snipe 34
Baudin’s black cockatoo 36
Black-breasted button quail 38
Black-browed albatross 40
Black-eared miner 42
Black-throated fnch (southern) 44
Blue petrel 46
Brown thornbill (King Island) 48
Buff-banded rail (Cocos (Keeling) Islands) 50
Buff-breasted button quail 52
Buller’s albatross 54
Campbell albatross 56
Cape barren goose (south-western) 58
Carnaby’s black cockatoo 60
Chatham albatross 62
Chestnut-rumped heathwren (Mt Lofty Ranges) 63
Christmas Island frigatebird 65
Christmas Island goshawk 67
Christmas Island hawk owl 69
Coxen’s fg parrot 70
Crested shrike tit (northern) 72
Crimson fnch (white-bellied) 74
Eastern bristlebird 76
Emerald dove (Christmas Island) 78
Fairy prion (southern) 80
Forty-spotted pardalote 82
Gibson’s albatross 84
Glossy black cockatoo (Kangaroo Island) 86
Golden whistler (Norfolk Island) 88
Golden-shouldered parrot 90
Gouldian fnch 93
Gould’s petrel 95
Grey grasswren (Bulloo) 97
Grey-headed albatross 99
Helmeted honeyeater 101
Herald petrel 103
Hooded robin (Tiwi Islands) 105
Imperial shag 107
Indian yellow-nosed albatross 109
Island thrush (Christmas Island) 111
Kermadec petrel (western) 113
Lord Howe Island currawong 115
Lord Howe woodhen 117
Macquarie shag 119
Mallee emu wren 121
Malleefowl 123
Masked owl (northern) 125
Masked owl (Tiwi Islands) 127
Muir’s corella 129
Night parrot 131
Noisy scrub bird 133
Norfolk Island boobook owl 135
Norfolk Island green parrot 137
Northern giant petrel 139
Northern royal albatross 141
Orange-bellied parrot 143
Pacifc albatross 145
Painted button quail (Houtman Abrolhos) 147
Partridge pigeon (eastern) 149
Partridge pigeon (western) 151
Plains wanderer 153
Princess parrot 155
Purple-crowned fairy wren (western) 157
Red goshawk 159
Red-lored whistler 161
Red-tailed black cockatoo (south-eastern) 163
Regent honeyeater 165
Regent parrot (eastern) 167
Round Island petrel 169
Salvin’s albatross 171
Scarlet robin (Norfolk Island) 173
Scrubtit (King Island) 175
Shy albatross 177
Slender-billed thornbill (western) 179
Soft-plumaged petrel 181
Sooty albatross 183
Southern cassowary (Australian) 185
Southern emu wren (Eyre Pen.) 187
Southern emu wren (Fleurieu Pen.) 189
Southern giant petrel 191
Southern royal albatross 193
Spotted quail thrush (Mt Lofty Ranges) 195
Squatter pigeon (southern) 197
Star fnch (eastern) 199
Superb parrot 201
Swift parrot 203
Thick-billed grasswren (eastern) 205
Thick-billed grasswren (Gawler Ranges) 207
Tristan albatross 209
Wandering albatross 211
Wedge-tailed eagle (Tasmanian) 213
Western bristlebird 215
Western ground parrot 217
Western whipbird (eastern) 219
Western whipbird (western heath) 221
Western whipbird (western mallee) 223
White-bellied storm petrel (Tasman Sea) 225
White-capped albatross 227
White-winged fairy wren (Barrow Island) 229
White-winged fairy wren (Dirk Hartog Island) 231
Yellow chat (Alligator Rivers) 233
Yellow chat (Dawson) 235
referenCes for All speCies ACCounts 237
generAl referenCes (exCluDing refs for speCies ACCounts) 254
AppenDix 1: birD tAxA listeD As tHreAteneD At June 2009 259
AppenDix 2: metHoD seleCtion guiDe for birD groups 263
How to USe tHeSe gUIdelIneS
The purpose of this document is to provide proponents and assessors with a guide to surveying Australia’s
threatened birds listed under national environment law—the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
These survey guidelines will help to determine the likelihood of a species’ presence or absence at a site.
They have been prepared using a variety of expert sources and should be read in conjunction with the
Australian Government environment department’s Signifcant impact guidelines 1.1—Matters of national
environmental signifcance.
these guidelines are not mandatory. Proposals that fail to meet these survey guidelines because of
effciency, cost or validity will not necessarily mean that referral is required (that is, that a signifcant impact
is likely), especially where the proponent provides an evidence-based rationale for an alternative survey
approach. Alternatives to a dedicated survey may also be appropriate. For example, a desktop analysis of
historic data may indicate that a signifcant impact is not likely. Similarly, a regional habitat analysis may be
used to determine the importance of a site to the listed birds. Proponents should also consider the proposal’s
impact in the context of the species’ national, regional, district and site importance to establish the most
effective survey technique(s).
Failing to survey appropriately for threatened species that may be present at a site could result in the
department applying the ‘precautionary principle’ when determining whether a signifcant impact is likely. That
is, if no supporting evidence (such as survey results) is presented to support the claim of species absence
then the department may assume that the species is in fact present. The department will not accept claimed
species absence without effective validation such as through these survey guidelines, other survey techniques
(for example, a state guideline or an accepted industry guideline), or relevant expertise. Where a claim of
absence is made, proposals should provide a robust evaluation of species absence.
Biological surveys are usually an essential component of signifcant impact assessment and should be
conducted on the site of the proposed action before referral. Surveys help evaluate impact on matters of
national environmental signifcance by establishing whether a species is present or likely to be present. Before
starting a survey, proponents may wish to contact the department’s relevant assessment section to discuss
their project and seek advice on appropriate survey effort and design.
1
Doing a survey to this model and confrming that nationally protected species are at the site does not in
itself predict a signifcant impact—it is one of many factors that increase the likelihood of signifcant impact
and should be considered when establishing whether a signifcant impact is likely or certain. As part of the
assessment process, suffcient information is usually required to determine whether a species’ presence at
a site constitutes a ‘population’ or ‘important population’ as defned in the Signifcant impact guidelines 1.1.
Surveys done using these guidelines will not necessarily be enough to determine whether the occurrence
constitutes a ‘population’ or ‘important population’.
These guidelines help to determine presence or the probability of presence. They do not establish or
assess species abundance, as the effort in terms of cost and time required for an abundance survey is much
greater than that determining presence/absence. Effective abundance surveys would need to compare
survey effort and techniques with further exploration of a proposal’s context, including important population
location(s), habitat importance, ecological function and species behaviour.
2 | Survey guidelines for Australia’s threatened birds
IntrodUctIon
This document provides a guide to planning and undertaking surveys on threatened birds listed under the
EPBC Act, relevant to a referral to the federal environment minister.
The individual taxa (species or subspecies) accounts provide a guide to appropriate survey methods and effort
when assessing whether listed taxa occur at or near a specifed site (‘study area’). These guidelines focus on
assessing the presence or likelihood of presence of taxa in a study area and not on assessing the abundance
of individuals.
These guidelines are limited to recommending the effort with selected techniques to establish whether a target
species is present, absent or in low abundance in a project area. A survey is interpreted as the frst step in
assessing the impact of a proposed project on any threatened bird species. The approaches in each species
profle should be regarded as a minimum and should be included in any general fauna survey that seeks to
determine the presence of threatened species. If threatened species are found during the survey, then different
techniques may be required to establish whether the project area contains important habitat (nest sites,
foraging sites, water sources and movement corridors) for those threatened species.
The taxa accounts relate to the 108 bird taxa that are classifed as threatened under the EPBC Act (see
Table A.1) as at June 2009. However, the EPBC Act threatened species list is dynamic and survey guidelines
are likely to be applied to some taxa not currently listed. Hopefully, with ongoing conservation programs the
populations of some taxa will recover and be removed from this list. Appendix 2 provides a general outline of
the considerations and standard methods used for groups of related birds (for example, shorebirds).
3
determInIng PreSence
evidence of presence
A wide variety of survey methods have been developed to detect the presence of birds (for example, see
Ralph & Scott 1981; Bibby et al. 1992; Watson 2004). The presence of a bird taxa is usually established
by direct observation or the identifcation of species-specifc vocalisations. The nature of the habitat, the
survey method and the particular bird taxa will dictate which of these detection methods are most useful.
For example, in dense forest more than 90 per cent of species recorded may be detected by call alone
(Loyn 1986). Conversely, species that occur in open habitats, such as some ducks and shorebirds, are
mostly detected by direct observation (Howes & Bakewell 1989). Several indirect evidence ‘signs’ can also
indicate whether a particular species is present. These include distinctive droppings, regurgitated pellets,
feathers, tracks, current or old nests and eggshell. For example, dung and footprints have been used to
determine the distribution and habitat use of the threatened southern cassowary Casuarius casuarius in north
Queensland (Westcott 1999). Similarly, surveys of the threatened mallee fowl Leipoa ocellata in areas where
it occurs in low abundance have focused on detecting active nesting mounds rather than the birds themselves
(TBN 2002).
Detection and search effort
Generally, the more time spent searching for a species that at least occasionally occurs in an area, the greater
the likelihood of detecting it (Bibby et al. 1992; Slater 1994). The amount of time spent searching is referred to
as the ‘search effort’, and is usually quantifed in terms of ‘person hours’ or, if working in teams, ‘survey team
hours’. Many bird species, however, occur at very low densities, are cryptic in nature, and/or vary greatly in
abundance and distribution over time. Consequently, it is rarely possible to confdently prove the absence or
local extinction of a species without exhaustive survey effort that is replicated in space (different locations at
the same time) and time (same location at different times). So the failure to detect a species in a particular area
at a particular time should be reported as ‘not detected’ rather than ‘absent’ (Resources Inventory Committee
1998a; NSW DEC 2004).
predicting presence
In some cases it may be impractical or inappropriate to conduct surveys for the presence of a particular taxon.
This may be the case when a taxon rarely uses the area or its abundance is so low in a particular area that the
survey effort required to determine absence would not be feasible or cost effective (see Planning and design
of surveys). For example, many threatened albatross species at some time will visit most areas off southern
Australia, but mounting a survey to detect the presence of one species at a particular location would generally
be futile. In these situations it will be necessary to rely on previous records of presence in the region and/or
predictive modelling to determine the likelihood of occurrence.
4 | Survey guidelines for Australia’s threatened birds
