This year is no exception and every day there are more birds arriving, some to stay and some to continue their journey south.

The Hunter Estuary Wetland Reserve is an internationally important wetland, the most important in NSW for waders. It is here that the birds return, to spend the summer months fattening up for the return journey north in April and May next year.

The Hunter Estuary is particularly important for Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Curlew Sandpiper, Eastern Curlew, Great Knot, Red Knot, Terek Sandpiper and Grey-tailed Tattler. Many of the 35 species of migratory shorebirds have been seen in the Hunter.

Shorebirds are waders which means they walk in water in the intertidal zones which occur in areas of high tides and estuaries along the east coast. These mudflats contain a food, a diverse fauna of small burrowing bristleworms, clams and crabs.

The birds are specialists and have evolved with different length legs and different shaped bills to take advantage of the diversity of food available on the mud flats and this difference ensures there is less competition for a single food source.

In Australia there are 14 shorebirds, including 13 migrants that use tidal flats exclusively to feed in the non-breeding period. They cannot forage in any other habitat. If the habitat is disturbed and the food source removed the birds will die.

All along the East Asia-Australasian Flyway, this is exactly what is happening. In the ten years to 2013, 51% of coastal wetlands in China and 60% in South Korea were drained for human use.

The impact is noticeable in the numbers of birds returning to Australia each year. There has been an 80% decline in Curlew Sandpiper and the Eastern Curlew, our largest shorebird has declined by 50%.

Last weekend a Welcome to Shorebirds event was held at Stockton Sandspit by members of Hunter Bird Observers Club and many of the returning birds were there for all to see. It is a wonderful sight to see large flocks of birds flying in to roost during the high tide and to feed on the mud as the tide recedes.

Certainly, a habitat worth preserving.