Lake Woods is an ephemeral freshwater lake in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

 of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It lies on Newcastle Creek close to the small town of Elliott

Elliott, Northern Territory

Elliott is a town in Northern Territory, Australia. It is located almost halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs on the Stuart Highway. The town is in the Yapurkulangu ward of the Barkly Shire. The area is the home of the Jingili people and the traditional name of the town is Kulumindini...

 on the Stuart Highway

Stuart Highway

The Stuart Highway is one of Australia's major highways. It is a segment of Australia's Highway 1 extending from Darwin, Northern Territory, in the north, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta, South Australia, in the south—a distance of...

, about halfway between Darwin

Darwin, Northern Territory

Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...

 and Alice Springs. It is important as a breeding site for waterbirds.

Description

There are two near-permanent waterholes on Newcastle Creek - South Newcastle and Longreach – that merge with Lake Woods during major floods, creating a large expanse of open water. The lake basin supports open Lignum

Muehlenbeckia florulenta

Muehlenbeckia florulenta, commonly known as Tangled Lignum or often simply Lignum, is a plant native to inland Australia. It is associated with wetland habitats, especially those in arid and semiarid regions subject to cycles of intermittent flooding and drying out...

 shrubland

Shrubland

Shrubland, scrubland, scrub or brush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity...

 and open woodland of Coolibah

Eucalyptus coolabah

Eucalyptus coolabah is a eucalypt of riparian zones and is found throughout Australia from arid inland to coastal regions. The plant is commonly called coolibah or coolabah, the name being a loanword from the Indigenous Australian Yuwaaliyaay word, gulabaa.Propagation is dependent on periods of...

, Gutta-percha and Belalie

Acacia stenophylla

Acacia stenophylla is a fast-growing tree that grows 4-10m tall. It is native to Australia and is widely planted in landscapes in the Southwest USA. It is not listed as a threatened species. It has medium salt and frost tolerance. The average minimum annual rainfall that the tree needs is around...

. River Red Gums occur around the waterholes.

The land in the IBA is covered by two pastoral lease

Pastoral lease

A pastoral lease is Crown land that government allows to be leased, generally for the purposes of farming.-Australia:Pastoral leases exist in both Australian commonwealth law and state jurisdictions....

s, Newcastle Waters and Powell Creek, both of which are managed by the Consolidated Pastoral Company

Consolidated Pastoral Company

The Consolidated Pastoral Company is a large, privately owned, Australian cattle company which operates 18 cattle stations covering over 57,000 km2, managing more than 350,000 cattle, in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland...

. About 8% of the land is managed as the Longreach Waterhole Protected Area by the Parks and Wildlife Service of the Northern Territory in cooperation with the lease managers.

Birds

A 1240 km² tract of land, corresponding to the area of the lake when fully inundated, has been identified by BirdLife International

BirdLife International

BirdLife International is a global Partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources...

 as an Important Bird Area

Important Bird Area

An Important Bird Area is an area recognized as being globally important habitat for the conservation of bird populations. Currently there are about 10,000 IBAs worldwide. The program was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife International...

 (IBA) because it has supported up to 116,000 waterbirds when flooded, including over 1% of the world population of Plumed Whistling-Ducks. It also provides habitat for Australian Bustard

Australian Bustard

The Australian Bustard, Ardeotis australis, is a large ground bird of grassland, woodland and open agricultural country across northern Australia and southern New Guinea. It is also commonly referred to in Central Australia as the Bush Turkey, particularly by Aboriginal people.The male is up to ...

s and Yellow-tinted Honeyeater

Yellow-tinted Honeyeater

The Yellow-tinted Honeyeater is a species of bird in the Meliphagidae family.It is found in Australia and Papua New Guinea....

s. Bird species recorded in substantial numbers include the Australian Pelican

Australian Pelican

The Australian Pelican is a large water bird, widespread on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant to New Zealand.-Taxonomy:...

, Oriental Pratincole

Oriental Pratincole

The Oriental Pratincole , also known as the Grasshopper-Bird or Swallow-Plover is a wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae....

 and Little Curlew

Little Curlew

The Little Curlew, Numenius minutus, is a wader in the large bird family Scolopacidae. It is a very small curlew, which breeds in the far north of Siberia. It is closely related to the North American Eskimo Curlew....

. The IBA is the only known inland breeding site in the Northern Territory for Great Egret

Great Egret

The Great Egret , also known as the Great White Egret or Common Egret, White Heron, or Great White Heron, is a large, widely-distributed egret. Distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world, in southern Europe it is rather localized...

s.