The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area comprise two small islands in the Wellesley Islands

Wellesley Islands

The Wellesley Islands are a group of islands off the coast of north Queensland, Australia, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. They were named by Matthew Flinders in honour of Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley. The largest island in the group is Mornington Island...

 group, lying in the south-east of the Gulf of Carpentaria

Gulf of Carpentaria

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...

 and part of the state of Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, 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...

. They are important for breeding seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...

s.

Description

The islands have a collective area of 51 ha and lie about 40 km north-west of Mornington Island

Mornington Island

Mornington Island is the northern most of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group. The island is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria at and is part of the Gulf Country region in the Australian state of Queensland. The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area lies about 40 km to...

, the largest of the Wellesley Group. The climate is monsoon

Monsoon

Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...

al with a hot wet season

Wet season

The the wet season, or rainy season, is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region occurs. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the...

 from December to April and an extended dry season

Dry season

The dry season is a term commonly used when describing the weather in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which oscillates from the northern to the southern tropics over the course of the year...

 from May to November. The islands are Aboriginal

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

 land owned by the Lardil

Lardil language

Lardil is a moribund language spoken on Mornington Island , in the Wellesley Islands of Queensland in northern Australia. Lardil is unusual among Australian languages in that it features a ceremonial register, called Damin...

 people. The traditional name of Manowar Island is Delmerriya or Wudma; that of Rocky Island is Kalamburriya.

Birds

The islands have 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 they support over 1% of the world populations of Brown Boobies

Brown Booby

The Brown Booby is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. The adult brown booby reaches about in length. Its head and upper body are covered in dark brown, with the remainder being a contrasting white. The juvenile form is gray-brown with darkening on the head, wings and tail...

 (up to 12,000 breeding pairs) and Lesser Frigatebird

Lesser Frigatebird

The Lesser Frigatebird, Fregata ariel, is a species of frigatebird.It nests in Australia, among other locations.There is a single record from the Western Palearctic, from Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba....

s (up to 7700 breeding pairs). Large numbers of 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:...

s and smaller numbers of Eastern Reef Egret

Eastern Reef Egret

The Eastern Reef Heron , also known as the Pacific Reef Egret or Eastern Reef Egret, is a kind of heron. They are found in many areas of Asia including the oceanic region of India, Southeast Asia, Japan, Polynesia, and in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.Pacific Reef Herons are medium-sized...

s, Osprey

Osprey

The Osprey , sometimes known as the sea hawk or fish eagle, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and across the wings...

s and White-bellied Sea-Eagles also breed on the islands.