Bird Watching in the Coral Coast

Australia's Coral Coast offers several unique and rewarding bird watching locations. 

Home to hundreds of species, the region's populations represent a large portion of Australia’s bird species.

Emus can be spotted in the bush of our National Parks, by the roadside and even roaming freely on the streets of Exmouth and Denham.

The cheeky laugh of the Kookaburra can also be heard throughout the region, with the Tawny Mouth Frog found in trees all over the Coral Coast. You might even see a Wedge-tailed Eagle, Australia’s largest living bird of prey, soaring in the open skies in Kalbarri or in the Cape Range National Park.

Here are the best locations for bird watching along the Coral Coast:

Carnamah

Carnamah's Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor is a group of salt lakes and one of the key sites where work is being done to reconnect drier inland habitats with their coastal counterparts.

The Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor will help protect and recover our endangered and declining woodland, and shrubland fauna such as the endangered Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo, Malleefowl, Crested Bellbird and the Western Yellow Robin. The Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor is found within the globally recognised Southwest Australia Ecoregion.

The hotspot is a triangular corner of WA, most of which is to the west of a line drawn from Shark Bay to Esperance. It is one of the world’s 34 internationally recognised biodiversity hotspots, which have more than 1500 endemic species of plant and have lost more than 70 per cent of their original habitat.

Shark Bay

Shark Bay has more than 200 species of birds, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Large breeding colonies of seabirds congregate along the coast and islands and draw many bird watching enthusiasts to the region.

The Francois Peron National Park, found in Shark Bay, has hundreds of pied Cormorant clusters can be seen resting on beaches after they have gone out to catch small fish in and around the seagrass. Their nesting areas are found in the relatively rare mangrove habitats of Shark Bay.

It's not just the bottlenose dolphins that steal the show in Monkey Mia - the walking trails around Monkey Mia are great for bird watching. Look out for the thick-billed grasswren, white-browed babblers, chiming wedgebill, southern scrub-robin, and crested bellbird. In summer there are a variety of shorebirds on the mudflats along the coast south.

Like an expert to show you around, Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures specialises in Shark Bay, home to some of Australia’s most unique wildlife and geology.

The Abrolhos Islands

The Abrolhos Islands, off Geraldton's coast, has more than 90 species of seabirds including such as crested terns, honeymooners, button quails, white breasted sea eagles.

The safe and isolated conditions of these islands, abundant with food, make, a perfect seabird sanctuary.

Some of the islands are so densely packed with birds, like the White Belly Sea Eagle, the sheer numbers and density of nesting birds is almost overwhelming. When walking the islands trails, be careful to avoid standing too close or on nests, especially Sea Eagle nests. The density of birds on some of the islands is incredible.

Unique to the Abrolhos are the quiet unassuming Lesser Noddys - their only other nesting place outside Australia is in the Seychelles. The Noddy birds are happy to sit quietly whilst having their photo taken.