Waterbirds waste no time exploiting wetland bonanza

Earlier this year, torrential rain fell in the Channel Country in far western Queensland hard on the heels of heavy summer rains and the 2009 inundation of Lake Eyre. The unpredictable cycles of flooding in the Lake Eyre Basin have always attracted waterbirds from afar. Now, with the gradual deterioration of wetland habitat in the MurrayDarling Basin, the Channel Country may have become the breeding powerhouse for at least 25 waterbird species.