The Marion Bay Important Bird Area is on the south-western side of Marion Bay

Marion Bay, Tasmania

Marion Bay is a large bay and a bounded locality located on the southeast coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is near Dunalley in the Municipality of Sorell...

, south-eastern Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

, 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 includes two sandy, high-energy, oceanic beach

Beach

A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...

es, Marion Bay Beach and North Bay Beach, encompasses the privately owned Long Spit Nature Reserve, and extends through the entrance of Blackman Bay to the intertidal mudflat

Mudflat

Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...

s within. The beaches and mudflats form a single system used by wader

Wader

Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...

s, or shorebirds; the storm-swept beaches of the outer bay contrast with and complement the sheltered mudflats and sand-bars of the inner bay.

Birds

The system of beaches and mudflats 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 a 584 ha 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 regularly supports significant numbers of Fairy Tern

Fairy Tern

The Fairy Tern is a small tern which occurs in the southwestern Pacific.There are three subspecies:* Australian Fairy Tern, Sterna nereis nereis - breeds in Australia...

s and Hooded Plover

Hooded Plover

The Hooded Dotterel or Hooded Plover is a species of bird in the Charadriidae family. It is endemic to southern Australia and Tasmania. There are two recognized subspecies, both of which are classifed as Endangered....

s, as well as over 1% of the world population of Pied Oystercatcher

Pied Oystercatcher

The Pied Oystercatcher, Haematopus longirostris, is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird native to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. The similar South Island Pied Oystercatcher The Pied Oystercatcher, Haematopus longirostris, is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading...

s. Red-necked Stint

Red-necked Stint

The Red-necked Stint is a small migratory wader.- Description :These birds are among the smallest of waders, very similar to the Little Stint, Calidris minuta, with which they were once considered conspecific...

s use the IBA in substantial numbers, while other birds regularly recorded include Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

The Curlew Sandpiper is a small wader that breeds on the tundra of Arctic Siberia. It is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and in Australasia...

s, Sooty Oystercatcher

Sooty Oystercatcher

The Sooty Oystercatcher, Haematopus fuliginosus, is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird native to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. It prefers rocky coastlines, but will occasionally live in estuaries....

s and Little Tern

Little Tern

The Little Tern, Sternula albifrons or Sterna albifrons, is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. It was formerly placed into the genus Sterna, which now is restricted to the large white terns . The former North American and Red Sea S. a...

s.