Bird Watching


birdBird Watching is one of the most relaxing and peaceful hobbies anyone can do and the Warialda district has a fantastic variety of bird life for you to discover.

Growing in popularity around the world, bird watching is in fact, second only to gardening! To the average person, bird watching may not seem to be too exciting or even insightful, but how wrong that image is! Birds give us beauty, entertainment, observational skills, and so much more!  It can be very challenging to identify species of birds.

A simple sport, and bird watching is a sport! It requires practice, concentration, and skills to become adept at it. The beginning bird watcher can’t go out one time and know  takes time and practice and – above everything else – patience!

Because you don’t need special equipment to watch birds, you can literally do it anywhere but its even better if you can find a place that has an abundance of bird life in the one area. The Warialda district offers such a place. It is unique in the fact that the birds from the East meet the birds from the West which gives such a vast variety of species in the one area.

Approximately 150kms from Warialda is the Gwydir Wetlands. Over 235 different species of birds have been recorded in the Lower Gwydir wetlands. Of these, 134 have been observed to use the wetlands for breeding. At least five endangered species and nine species of migratory birds that are listed under CAMBA and/or JAMBA have been recorded in the wetlands.

Bird Routes Brochure

The Warialda Bird Route brochure is available from the tourist office or as a pdf (click here to download a copy pdf 1MB) and provides a comprehensive directory with maps of birds found in the Warialda, Bingara and Barraba localities.The brochure identifies more than 200 native birds that frequent the area, also identifying special locations where the birds of the east meet the birds of the west

The idea behind mapping the bird routes was to increase the knowledge of landholders and community groups in identifying local native birds. A second benefit was to increase landholders’ understanding of the part they can play in maintaining and enhancing bird habitats by managing biodiversity on their properties.

Links to interesting bird pages
     Bird Atlas
Birds Australia

     Australian Museum
     Birdwatching Australia
     Birding NSW – NSW Field Ornithologists Club
     OWL – Ornithological Worldwide Literature