Julie Keating, a retired Sydneysider, has dedicated her life to protecting endangered seabirds after a heartbreaking encounter with a pair of Australian pied oystercatchers.
Sydneysider Julie Keating had a career in finance and planned to spend her retirement travelling the world. A pair of seabirds set her on a very different path. About 10 years ago, a pair of Australian pied oystercatchers nested outside her home in Maianbar, on the southern shore of Port Hacking near the Royal National Park. One morning, Keating woke up to the sound of the parent birds calling for their chicks.
She saw immediately that the nest had been destroyed by feral foxes, but it took longer for the parents to accept it. For the past decade, Julie Keating has spent most of her waking hours guarding seabirds on the Maianbar foreshore.‘They walked up and down and called for their chicks for a couple of hours until they ran out of beach and realised they weren’t there,’ Keating recalls, a tear rolling down her cheek. ‘People tend to think that animals will find the people that will help them. Putting those eggs right out the front of my place just as I’d retired got me involved in what they need.’ Instead of travelling the world, Keating has spent most of the past decade roaming the shore near her home, guarding resident and migratory seabirds. The oystercatchers are endangered in NSW. The tidal flats at Maianbar are also a southern summer home for the critically endangered far eastern curlew, which breeds in China and Russia and flies to Australia for the southern spring, and endangered bar-tailed godwits, which hold the record for the longest non-stop migration. Keating’s vigil starts in July when the eastern curlews arrive and ends in March when they leave. On sunny days she spends hours on the beach, often starting from 6am, wearing a hat and long sleeves for sun protection but shorts and no shoes so she can wade. On rainy days, she dons her good raincoat and pops down at regular intervals.Julie Keating with volunteer John Broughton watching seabirds on the tidal flats at Port Hackin
SEABIRDS ENDANGERED SPECIES CONSERVATION AUSTRALIA VOLUNTEERISM
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