Field instruments, records-builders and reference material. Everything a Steward uses to read, record and interpret a site.
About the site. Tide, substrate, bird, behaviour, together, as a whole.
The Reader becomes situationally aware: tide and substrate, species, count, behaviour, disturbance, recorded. Reader is an active practice. An observer looks on; a Reader reads.
Sharing the science and the wonder with others. Reading the site, telling the story.
An Interpreter has the literacy a Reader built, and adds the work of sharing what is happening with whoever else is at the site. StewardWatch supports that work: a flag-read identifies a particular bird, the Senior Reviewer approves the record, BirdMark returns the bird’s history within about five days. The Interpreter then has a real journey to talk about.
About a single bird and a single roost. Terek Sandpiper at dusk on Pumicestone Passage.
A 2026–27 pilot study of Terek Sandpiper roost use at the Kakadu Beach Constructed Roost. Stewards run dusk observation sessions from a fixed point at the roost edge under team-leader guidance. Records feed both DuskWatch's local dataset and BirdMark for any flag-marked birds detected in the settled flock.
Every conversation in the program begins and ends with Gazza. He is the AI Teacher's Aide for For Shorebirds, the online tutor on the other end of every tool on this page. Stewards reach him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, expert mode, for 6 months from enrolment.
Gazza interviews you before training begins. He reads every ShorelineWatch record before each return conversation. He revises your lesson plan after every session. The same single voice runs from the entry test that opens ShorelineWatch through to the standard a bird-first record has to meet.
A male baueri who has flown the East Asian–Australasian Flyway eight times. Currently on Moreton Bay, weeks from his northbound staging.
A Shorebird Steward is a reader of the site. That work is the foundation. Some Stewards will also interpret at the waterline; some won't. Both are full Stewards. The two are different relationships to the same record, not rungs on a ladder.
The Reader is about the site. Tide and substrate and bird and behaviour, together, as a whole that can be read. The Reader becomes situationally aware. ShorelineWatch is the Reader’s instrument; StewardWatch deepens the record once trained.
The Interpreter is about sharing the science and the wonder with others. Reading the site, and telling the story. StewardWatch’s flag-return gives the Interpreter a particular bird’s journey to share. Not every Steward interprets at the waterline. The work begins with reading.
The reading is the foundation. The record is the contribution.
A training cycle is not a one-off visit. Eight stages run from one Gazza interview to the next, then they run again, year-round. The diagram below shows the cycle as a Reader works it; an Interpreter works the same cycle with different fieldwork at the centre. The Interpreter cycle will be drawn in once that stage of the program is built out.
Gazza reads every ShorelineWatch record before the next return conversation.
ShorelineWatch is the public-tier tool. Anyone can use it after a two-minute brief with Gazza. The Shorebird Steward Course is for those who want to go deeper — first cohort late June / July 2026.