Pelican landing at Boat Harbour
Boat Harbour at Hurlstone Park is a man-made rectangular-shaped harbour on the Cooks River on the eastern side of the heritage Sugar Factory building. It was built for Sea Scouts in the 1960s. The surrounding parklands are particularly lovely & Boat Harbour is a gorgeous, peaceful place that is a haven for waterbirds.
Next to Boat Harbour & opposite the Sugar Factory is a pedestrian bridge that crosses the river & the newly created Cup & Saucer Creek Wetland is just a short stroll away towards Canterbury. If you haven’t been to this area, it makes for a really nice walk or bike ride with plenty to see. There is plenty of angled parking on Hutton Street which I have never seen full.
Hunting as the water level drops
Pelicans, Darters, Cormorants, Pacific Black Ducks & Seagulls like the area beside & beneath the bridge because an island of rocks & tree branches is exposed at low tide, allowing them to perch more naturally & be together. In reality, there are few places along the river where waterbirds can perch as most trees do not hang over the river & any side branches have been removed. There are very few things on the river itself where birds can sit. A floating rubbish collection boom curves out from the mouth of Boat Harbour into the river & it is not unusual to see 10 Darters & Cormorants lined up here all facing into the wind.
During some visits to the Boat Harbour many people spoke happily to me about the presence of birds at Boat Harbour. They are always excited about this & usually we have a discussion about how wonderful it is to have so much birdlife in this section of the river.
Boat Harbour has 2 grassy points: a short one on the eastern side of the mouth of the harbour & a peninsula on the western side. Birds congregate on both points watching the tide until it is time to fish. The peninsula is the most popular place as it is a long way from people, making the birds feel safe. It is not unusual to see Pelicans, Masked Lapwings, Pacific Black Ducks, any number of Darters & Cormorants, plenty of pigeons, Magpie Larks, a few Ibis, seagulls & other birds that I cannot identify all sitting on the peninsula.
Because the river is tidal, Boat Harbour empties completely. I estimate that it is about 1.50 metres deep when full. As the tide goes out, Magpie Larks start picking at the exposed riverbed & they do this for hours. Ibis & White-Faced Herons arrive & start digging for crabs. Ducks come too. The Masked Lapwings & another bird I can’t identify start to look like soldiers scanning the water & the fish start jumping, but they are not big fish. I’m convinced the fish are trying to see what danger is around because they have to leave Boat Harbour before it empties completely. It’s a risky business for a fish to get through the mouth of Boat Harbour with all the birds waiting & if the pelicans are in the water, even more dangerous.
Like any watercourse, it changes depending on the tide, but it is always shallow & the opening to the river gets smaller & smaller as the tide goes out. It slowly narrows to less than a metre.
I’ve watched Pelicans waddle over the exposed mud to a deep pond left as the tide goes out & have an entrée of all the fish who got left behind. When the tide is really low, that’s where the real fun starts. Some Pelicans leave for somewhere upstream while usually three others stay behind to swim back & forth across the diminishing mouth of Boat Harbour to catch their food.
It really is a wonderful sight. Even if you are walking or riding by, it is nice to look over & see all the birds at this location. I know that the community is very happy to see so many birds coming to live on the Cooks River. Even Royal Spoonbills, a bird that doesn’t like disturbance, are being sighted more & more.
Damage done just this week by cars driving to the riverbank
Unfortunately, this is being threatened. Fishing by humans is starting to impact on the bird life in Boat Harbour in particular. Unfortunately, people have started driving their cars right into the park to park directly next to the river instead of parking on the road and walking 50-metres down to the riverbank. Their wheels churn up the grass & native violets leaving deep furrows, as this area is always a bit wet. The cars also scare away the birds & the presence of cars changes the ambience of the park.
Not all people who come to fish drive in, but they are setting up on both the points of Boat Harbour & often putting up multiple fishing lines. I’ve watched while holding my breath, little ducks swimming amongst the fishing lines probably looking to see if the people there are interested in throwing some bread to them.
A local told me a white duck was recently found decapitated. Whether this had to do with fishing I don’t know, but there is a feeling in the community that the duck was caught in a line & had its head chopped off. I was told that its body was untouched & the cut was clean. There is distress in the community about the death of this duck as it was a friendly spirit & because of its colour, very noticeable when it was around. Even if fishing was not the cause of this duck losing its head, it is only a matter of time before a bird does get injured in this location by nylon lines.
I’ve debated even writing about fishing in this area as I do have thoughts that people should be able to fish where they like. However, I have come to the conclusion that there should be at least one area of the Cooks River that is a no fishing zone & that it should be Boat Harbour for the following reasons.
Pelican & Masked Lapwing on the peninsula at Boat Harbour.
All the Councils along the Cooks River are trying to increase biodiversity by improving the health of the river. Increasing the bird population is a very good thing & an indicator that the effort to rehabilitate the river is working. The presence of water birds brings beauty & wonder. Watching the birds teaches people about the river & how it works. Their presence can result in people respecting the river more. My experience is that the presence of these birds makes people feel happy & in touch with nature. I have written enough on this blog about how green & nature has a substantial & positive impact on mental & physical health. An active river is a no-brainer. We do benefit from this.
The places where birds congregate on the river from Tempe to Canterbury can be counted on one hand. There are relatively few ‘natural’ places that are both comfortable & safe for birds to just hang around & watch the river, which is part of their natural behaviour.
Two very significant & naturally safe places for birds are the 2 points of Boat Harbour. Human activity, such as fishing from the points, takes away from the birds the opportunity to do what is natural & essential to them. That is, calculate the tides & fish for their survival. This is deeply concerning because the impact has the potential to get substantially worse. If the birds cannot fish, they don’t eat. If they can’t find enough food they will leave to somewhere where they can & we will be left with a river depleted of birds.
Yesterday, a very nice man (I spoke to him) set up a number of fishing poles & sat with a rod at the end of the peninsula. 3 children sat with their rods on the other point while their father fished a few metres away on the other side of the rubbish collector boom. Pelicans & other birds waited with no hope in sight on the boom watching the tide go out. As the people were too close, the birds felt it was far too dangerous for them to fish in the mouth of Boat Harbour. So I guess they went hungry last night. Is this right or is it just the birds’ tough luck?
I & the birds, I am sure, were thinking that these people could well set up their fishing place just 50-metres away from the points of the harbour so that everyone could be happy.
As an aside, the Bolivian government recently passed the ‘Law of the Rights of Mother Earth’ which gives nature equal rights to humans.
I made a short video of the pelicans fishing at Boat Harbour here – http://bit.ly/whtq6z
3 groups of people fishing, one with multiple lines. 3 Pelicans & a Darter are waiting on the rubbish collection boom as they would usually be hunting for fish at this time. There are 2 ducks swimming around the fishing lines at the mouth of the harbour.
Google map of Boat Harbour. Click to enlarge.
I watched this Dusky Moorhen running back & forth building a nest on the rubbish collection boom. Unfortunately the tide took it all away by the following day.
Showing Boat Harbour emptying. The white dots are birds. There are also ducks & a Heron or two that can't be seen in this shot.
SAVING OUR TREES - Marrickville municipality 
8 comments
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February 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Kristina
It’s fantastic to see so many birds in this area of the Cook’s River. Also great to see how the plants are all looking healthy.
I wonder about signage for fishermen. Is it possible to redirect people who want to fish, to another specific area, and to give reasons why? Or perhaps designate the area as a bird & fish sanctuary & therefore no fishing in the sanctuary. There could be information signs on the different birds in the area.
Signs like these would be educational & including rather than the usual sign of ‘no fishing, no bike riding, no this, no that…. etc. (Signs such as these do not always encourage communal living!) Marrickville could even have a competition for the most creatively informative sign.
And I also wonder about general signage for fishermen. Jacqueline, do you know if there are any signs warning people that the river is polluted & therefore fish would not be good for food? Also I have never seen any signs for fishermen to take their rubbish & fishing line. Unfortunately I’ve seen too many birds unnecessarily & terribly injured by fishing line left along the river. Signage would really help change the carelessness of left fishing line, hooks, & other rubbish.
February 23, 2012 at 11:02 am
Lisa Wriley
I found your post very interesting an have made a comment on the Save our Trees facebook page. Hope that’s ok.
I am very interested in the litter in the river and lobbying for a national solution to beverage container litter. The Cash for Containers Campaign is lobbying Environment Ministers for the 10c refund on bottles and cans (container deposit legislation). The ministers are making a decision in June this year, after a process of public forums and submissions (see http://www.boomerangalliance.org.au).
We want to get the medias attention in late April and are looking for volunteers to make a seaworthy vessel using beverage container litter – or decorate existing vessels with bottles! Anyone who is interested in being apart of this please contact me via email lisaw@tec.org.au or phone 9211 5022 at the Total Environment Centre.
May 5, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Leo
As a keen fisherman on the Cooks river and local I can say over the last 15 years the the fish and bird population has grown noticeably.
I and a number of other regular LURE fisherman on the river are strictly catch and release. We make every effort to avoid harming fish or bird life through the use of single hook lures, barbless hooks and careful casting.
In the 10 or so years I have been fishing the cooks I can safely say I have never returned a fish to the water dead or even come close to hooking a bird.
Some (not all) of the bait fishers on the river aren’t so careful. I have seen countless undersized fish taken, rubbish left everywhere. I would say that the majority are unlicensed and therefore fishing illegally. Its pretty easy to spot the difference as soon as you see multiple rods, eskies etc you can tell they aren’t intending to release their catch.
If you have a fishing licence it is legal to take fish from the river if you adhere to size and bag limits, although there are signs posted along the river warning of the dangers which are often entirely ignored.
I can see this becoming an “us vs them” situation and I and most other fishermen on the river really do not want that to happen. We too have a vested interest in the health of the river and the idea of fishing bans in my opinion won’t solve anything. What needs to happen are increased patrols by fisheries, ie more than none and stricter enforcement of existing rules.
The Cooks has the potential to be a fantastic place for all kinds of recreational activities, I think it is being let down by inaction on the part of councils, state and federal governments.
May 6, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Jacqueline
Thanks for your comment Leo. It would be great if either Fisheries or Council patrolled & educated people about fishing responsibly in the Cooks River. I am not against fishing, nor do I want to ban fishing in the Cooks River & this was not at all suggested or alluded to in my post.
I do however, strongly believe that the waterbirds need at least one safe sanctuary along the Cooks River & that this area should be Boat Harbour & 50-metres either side. I believe this is needed because as I wrote in the post, “The places where birds congregate on the river from Tempe to Canterbury can be counted on one hand. There are relatively few ‘natural’ places that are both comfortable & safe for birds to just hang around & watch the river, which is part of their natural behaviour.” I think it is unkind to fish from the points of Boat Harbour knowing that the birds have 1. no other place like Boat Harbour 2. waited all day for the tide to drop so they can fish for their dinner. Unlike us, they can’t go to Woolies if they are hungry.
I think it is more than fair to allow fishing along the whole length of the river, except for this one small section.
May 7, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Leo
I would have no problem with a fishing ban at the boat harbour if it was limited to just there it is a poor fishing location at the best of times. Mostly due to lack of fish holding structure and also due to the comparatively large amount of fishing pressure it receives.
The problem I have with it is it becomes a ‘thin edge of the wedge’ kind of situation If banned there it takes a lot less for it to be banned elsewhere in the river, and so on….
Even if fishing was banned there I highly doubt that most people that fish there would take any notice of a ban if it was put in place. Due to due to the fact that it would, like existing fishing regulations in the area go completely unenforced.
May 8, 2012 at 8:39 am
Jacqueline
Thanks for leaving another comment Leo. It’s good to chat about this issue. It’s also good to learn that Boat Harbour is a poor fishing location, so if it were ever made into a wildlife sanctuary the people who fish there won’t be suffering much of a loss.
There isn’t even one wildlife sanctuary along the Cooks River, so I can’t imagine that a whole group of them would be established any time soon. Even if such areas were created in the future, I believe that fishing can easily co-exist with such places. I think it is our duty to provide areas where wildlife is safe from people. The payoff will be increased biodiversity & we all benefit from this, including people who fish.
I find it sad that you believe people will blatantly ignore a government effort to restrict their sport a tiny little bit. As you noted in your first comment, there is already poor behaviours happening as a norm & many in the community already view people who fish along the river in poor light. Their cooperation, if a wildlife sanctuary were ever to be established, would only improve their community standing.
December 3, 2017 at 5:06 pm
Alex
Dave Noble has some nice photos of a turtle laying eggs here http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=17417#more-17417
December 9, 2017 at 8:39 pm
Saving Our Trees
Thanks for referring me to this great blog Alex 🙂