Great Western Woodlands Sunrise light on Eucalypt (gum) forest near the mining town of Norseman, in the Great Western Woodlands of Western Australia. © Mark Godfrey

Impact reports

Birds of the Great Western Woodlands

Birdlife of the world’s largest temperate woodland revealed

How do you conduct a bird survey in an area the size of England?

The Great Western Woodlands of south-west Australia are the largest temperate woodlands left on Earth. They’re teeming with a mind-boggling diversity of birds. A twitcher’s delight.

We teamed up with BirdLife Australia and hundreds of skilled and dedicated volunteers to conduct surveys of the remote woodlands over three years. The volunteers submitted 4,374 bird surveys and more than 28,000 individual birds of 182 species were recorded.

The end result of this work was a report on the Birds of the Great Western Woodlands.

Download the report

  • by BirdLife Australia and The Nature Conservancy

    Birds in the Great Western Woodlands

    The largest remaining intact temperate woodland on Earth, but due to the remoteness and inaccessibility of much of the region little is known about the biology of this 16 million hectare area. Download the report

The surveys showed that for most species, bird populations of the Great Western Woodlands appear to be abundant, resilient and stable. This is welcome news and highlights the benefit of vast areas of healthy habitat for birds that are suffering elsewhere.  However, it does not mean the future of our woodland birds is secure. This is just the start of the research and conservation work that is needed in the Great Western Woodlands.

BirdLife Australia has established a volunteer committee to ensure that bird surveys continue until at least 2024. Ongoing monitoring will continue for at least another ten years to provide essential data on how Great Western Woodlands birds are being impacted by disturbances such as inappropriate fire regimes, climate change and feral plants and animals.