Moulting Lagoon Important Bird Area

It comprises two adjacent and hydrologically continuous wetlands – Moulting Lagoon and the Apsley Marshes – at the head of Great Oyster Bay, near the base of the Freycinet Peninsula, between the towns of Swansea and Bicheno.

[3] Although the lagoon's hydrology is usually dominated by its estuarine nature, during peak flows of the Swan River these are overridden by large quantities of fresh water.

The margins support successive bands of beaded glasswort, jointed rush and Poa grass tussocks, swamp paperbark and silver wattle, and Oyster Bay pine or pasture.

[4] The lagoon and the adjacent marshes have been identified by BirdLife International as a 63 km2 Important Bird Area (IBA) because they regularly support over 1% of the world populations of black swans and pied oystercatchers.

[5] Other waterbirds sometimes present on the lagoon in substantial numbers include Australian shelducks, chestnut teals, Australasian shovellers, musk ducks, black-faced and little pied cormorants, hoary-headed and great crested grebes, crested and Caspian terns, white-faced herons, masked lapwings, red-capped and double-banded plovers, and red-necked stints.