In Australia, spring is the peak migration and nesting season for our feathered friends, so grab your binoculars and camera and prepare to spy some rare wrens and colourful parrots.

If you have any tips on the best spots to see the feathers fly in Gippsland, feel free to email us at [email protected]. 

Let’s swoop in.

This freshwater wetlands and red gum woodland often attracts spoonbills, herons, ibis, ducks, swans, cormorants and other migratory birds. There is a boardwalk and bird hide - a camouflaged shelter used to watch wildlife up close without scaring it.

The series of lakes provides habitat for more than 20,000 waterbirds, including many migratory species. Look out for pelicans, swans, spoonbills, cormorants, ibis and raptors.

A wetland on the edge of Bairnsdale, Macleod Morass Wildlife Reserve has walking tracks and bird hides. Keep an eye out for little grassbirds and yellow thornbills.

A shallow coastal wetland surrounded by saltmarsh and native grasses, Jack Smith Lake is home to avocets, stilts, blue-winged parrots and striated fieldwrens.

On the western side of Wonthaggi in South Gippsland, Baxters Wetland has a dedicated birdwatching site to observe wetland species including swans, pacific black ducks, cormorants and purple swamphens.

Located at the end of Toora Jetty Road, the hide overlooks the coastal wetlands, mangroves, mudflats and shallow coastal waters on the edge of Corner Inlet.

There’s a 500-metre wheelchair-accessible boardwalk leading from the road to the hide.

A 28-hectare freshwater wetland reserve on the edge of Heyfield, this bird watching spot is surrounded by native vegetation and open countryside with a 4km walking track and viewing areas throughout the reserve.

The Swan Lake Trail is a short nature walk on the western side of Phillip Island that leads to the island's only permanent freshwater lake. It has accessible boardwalks and plenty of opportunities to stop and observe native birdlife, plus it’s close to the Penguin Parade.

Opened in 2023, the Drouin Bird Hide is beside the Drouin wastewater treatment plant on Settlement Road. It overlooks a series of treatment lagoons - ponds where wastewater is treated - that have become a common habitat for waterbirds.