Written and narrated by Nella Smith
Edited by Dr. Fleur Stelling
We are gathering stories from people throughout the Murrumbidgee on their sense of connection to places receiving cultural or environmental flows. This story from Nella Smith shares her deep connection to Tuckerbil Wetlands, a Ramsar-listed site near Leeton that provides vital refuge for rare and migratory birds, including brolga, bitterns and black swans. Through rich observation and personal reflection, Nella highlights the cultural and ecological importance of this unique wetland—and her hope that future generations will continue to cherish and protect it.
Transcript
[video: Tuckerbil Basin in foreground and Ramsar shallows in a surrounding cleared landscape to the right. Photograph taken by drone from Koonadan Historic Site. Plantings of eucalypts at Koonadan can be seen in the middle of the photograph.]
Tuckerbil Wetlands - one of 67 Ramsar wetlands of International Importance. These are rare or unique wetlands and important for conserving biological diversity. We also have CAMBA & JAMBA – International agreements with China and Japan to protect migratory species.
[video: Dozens of pacific black duck, hard head and grey teal flying in the sky, flushed by a disturbance.]
Just near Leeton, not far from my place, is Tuckerbil Wetlands. Clouds of ducks and waterfowl put up by a disturbance give the first clue to a deep basin and a shallow wetland nearby surrounded by a sandy lunette.
[video: Nella Smith walking through pale knotweed at the front of the Tuckerbil basin with a body of water in the middle distance.]
I come here to check for rare visitors and common ones as well. Sometimes I put on my gumboots and wade as far as I can amongst the reeds and rushes and knotweed and the ducks and waders.
[video: Interpretive signage at Koonadan Historic Site, containing a sketch stating: ‘this is an artist’s impression (Bob Barker, Griffith) of the Koonadan/Tuckerbil Swamp area, before the area was inhabited by Europeans. Note the extensive woodland area around the swamp.’]
Koonadan nearby, is an ancient Aboriginal burial ground. Now an Aboriginal keeping place. People lived here once long ago and gathered food in abundance.
[video: Seven pink-eared ducks swimming in the water.]
I check the ducks, species and numbers are different each time. Pink-eared and black ducks, teal, hardhead, shoveller and sometimes the rare, freckled duck and the weird musk duck with its unusual inflatable appendage.
[video: 12 ibis and 3 spoonbills in the shallow water in the foreground. A few masked lapwings and other waterbirds in the background.]
Sometimes I camp out here and revel in the morning that can bring lines of ibis and spoonbills.
[video: Little eagle flying in a blue sky (photo 1). Juvenile swamp harrier flying in a blue-grey sky (photo 2). Black shouldered kite perched on a dead tree (photo 3).]
Tuckerbil can be a hotbed for raptors ever watchful for a free feed. Black falcon, swamp harrier, whistling kite and the smaller kestrel and hobby.
[video: A darter and a little black cormorant perched on the branch of a dead tree (photo 1). Two budgerigars perched together in a eucalypt tree (photo 2).]
Outstretched arms of dead blackbox trees provide roosts for all sizes of cormorants, herons and pelicans. After all this was formerly a black box depression. The little hollows provide nesting sites for small parrots, red rumps and cockatiels.
[video: Brolga walking along the shore and pelicans standing in the shallow water. In the background there is green vegetation and a dead tree with healthy eucalypts in the distance.]
Brolgas know about Tuckerbil. They’ve been coming here for many years, probably even when First Nations people were floating their rafts, foraging for food before white settlement, before river regulation and irrigation. Now we rely on environmental water and cultural water to support the life at this wetland.
[video: Four brolga (including two juveniles in the middle, with the parents at the front and back) flying over a wetland with healthy eucalypts in the background.]
Brolga mother and father honk to the youngsters to keep up, and finally land amongst the reeds and always quietly striding away from me with my camera in my hand. I want to know…where do they go and where do they nest?
[video: 17 brolga in the shallow environmental water at the Tuckerbil Ramsar wetland, amidst grassy vegetation.]
Brolga gather here. Tuckerbil is a drought refuge and a gathering place for these majestic cranes.
[video: A single Australasian bittern poking its head out above a grassy area, with common reed in the background.]
Eerie booms of the bunyip bittern announce its presence but is impossible to find. Experts of camouflage and ventriloquy.
[video: Two black swans in flight just above the water, with one black winged stilt in the water in the process of getting out of their way.]
Black swans can usually be found feeding or resting or taking flight.
[video: Pelicans on the water, feeding in lines. Great cormorant perched in the dead trees amidst the wetland. Cumbungi in the background growing back after a Cultural burn. There is a eucalypt on the edge of the wetland with a low hill in the background.]
Pelicans swimming in unison help each other herd the shoals of baby carp. Looks like dinner.
[video: A single great egret foraging in the shallow water amongst some sparse rushes.]
I watch the great egret as it stealthily steps up to its prey.
[video: Yellow and royal spoonbill, great cormorant, black duck and pelican flying over the wetland, with stags, healthy eucalypts and reeds evident along the edges of the wetland.]
So many different species of birds, often best seen when they’re airborne. Attracted to the water available here in a surrounding dry landscape.
[video: Two sharp tailed sandpipers in the mudflats amidst shallow water (photo 1). A single red-kneed dotterel standing in the shallow water (photo 2).]
Nomadic and migratory waders love this place as much as I do. How do they all find their way here and why do they come?
[video: Bird perched on a tree silhouetted at sunset colouring the sky orange – possibly a brown falcon.]
At night, birds return to their roosting sites at Tuckerbil and the ducks and swans tuck their heads down for the night.
[video: A light grey brolga feather on the grey cracking clay with green shoots of emerging vegetation.]
Nobody left except discarded feathers and the red milfoil is growing now in the cracking clay, habitat for crustaceans and invertebrates, food for the next generation of birds and an opportunity for seeds to embed ready to sprout at the next environmental or cultural flow.
[video: Nella Smith with her 2.5-year-old grand-daughter Elouise at the edge of the basin in pale knotweed looking out over the water-filled wetland fringed by rushes, with healthy eucalypts in the distance.]
One day I brought my grand-daughter to this place. She might be the next crazy birdwatcher to count birds and keep an eye on the comings and goings of rare species. Let’s hope they keep coming.
[video: Logos: Charles Sturt University and the Australian Government Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder Flow Monitoring Evaluation and Research.]
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