Yarra Bend is my favourite place to bird: at time of writing I have more than 300 checklists and have seen 95 species in the park. It is environmentally degraded, with a high presence of invasive flora and fauna; vegetation has been extensively cleared for recreational uses; it is heavily trafficked by people and off-lead dogs; it is surrounded on all sides by urban development that continually chip away at its fringes, and yet, it somehow still manages to regularly surprise and delight me.

As of October 2025 the park is represented on eBird by a single all-encompassing hotspot, but has also been divided into nine hotspots representing subsections. One further section, Corben Ovals, I’m hopeful will be established as its own site in the future.

Many of these describe zones as they are familiar to birders, and often represent breaks in habitat from one area to the next. Though they’re usually named after a landmark, they are not necessarily formally designated places, and as such, they’re likely to be a bit inscrutable to those unfamiliar with the park.

With that in mind, I decided to describe how I understand each section, the habitats that can be found there, and profile some of the species that I and other birders have encountered in the past. Most of these are subsections of the park, but three – the Riverbankers Site, Quarries Park and Hall Reserve – are adjacent hotspots that I’ll often visit while on a trip through the broader area, and so I’ve included them here as well.

This is also limited to sites within the City of Yarra, my home local government area. I might look at Boroondara sites when I finish here, though I’m much less familiar with the left bank of the river!

The park is bisected by the Eastern Freeway, and to impose a bit of order I’ve similarly divded locations according to their side of the road. I’m still in the process of writing these posts and will focus on the southern sites first.

I’ll gradually update these posts as more species are observed, with more and better photographs, and with more information about habitat, particularly as it changes (hopefully for the better) and as my own understanding of it improves.

This post was last updated on 30 November 2025.

The Riverbankers Site

The Riverbankers Site runs along the Main Yarra Trail from the Johnston Street Bridge (2) north about 400m to a large oriental plane tree (4). It is named for the Abbotsford Riverbankers, a local environmental organisation who have cared for this zone since 2017.

This is not an eBird hotspot, but a personal location shared by Jonathan T and I. Every month we record the birds that are present in or above this area using a fixed-route 20 minute survey approach.

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Access

The Main Yarra Trail runs through the centre of the site. Limited parking is available on Turner Street, with more parking available at Abbotsford Convent (1) on the southern end or Dights Falls Park on the northern end. A ramp from Turner Street down to the trail (3) is a notable pedestrian access point.

Habitat

The Riverbankers Site is a narrow riparian corridor bordered on one side by right bank of the Yarra River and on the other side by pockets of riverine escarpment, flood walls, residential and commercial buildings. It is heavily trafficked, particularly by commuters on weekdays and recreationally on weekends, with a mixture of cyclists, walkers, runners and both on- and off-lead dogs, all of which affect the birdlfe present.

There are a few river red gum (eucalyptus camaldulensis), particularly clustered around the Turner Street Ramp area. Middle storey plants include silver wattle (acacia dealbata), black wattle (a. mearnsii) and blackwood (a. melanonoxylon).

At the river’s edge, particularly in the Turner Street area, there is an established patch of sedges. Where the ramp meets the trail there is a Yarra burgan (kunzea leptospermoides), a myrtle which is endemic to Victoria. Heading north along the trail, half a dozen river bottlebrush (melaleuca paludicola) are growing nicely alongside the path.

The active removal of river snags by park managers means that there are few suitable perches for water birds in this section.

Unfortunately, despite the continued weed management work of the Riverbankers, nationally significant weeds such as kikuyu grass (cenchrus clandestinus), wandering trad (tradescantia fluminensis) and madeira vine (anredera cordifolia) continue to be a presence here, the former particularly in the southern section near Johnston Street. There are multiple Canary Island date palm (phoenix canariensis), Peruvian pepper (schinus molle) and London plane (platanus × acerifolia) trees lining the main trail.

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Birds

The southern end of the site around Johnston Street Bridge (A) has a strong presence of introduced bird species, particularly rock dove (columba livia) and common myna (acridotheres tristis), with occasional spotted dove (spilopelia chinensis). Spotted pardalote (pardalotus punctatus) have increasingly been observed moving between river red gum canopy further north and the London plane trees in this southern secion.

The heavy level of human activity, high number of dogs and narrow, thin habitat corridors affect the birdlife here. Nevertheless there has been a resilient population of small insectivores, particularly white-browed scrubwrens (sericornis frontalis) and brown thornbills (acanthiza pusilla) but increasingly superb fairywrens (malurus cyaneus) as well. All three of these species are most common in the densely vegetated riparian zone below the Turner Street ramp (C), though the brown thornbills can often also be found in acacias 100m further downriver (B).

Noisy miners (manorina melanocephala), red wattlebirds (anthochaera carunculata) and white-plumed honeyeaters (ptilotula penicillata) are the most common honeyeaters here. The latter are particularly present feeding in the Turner Street zone, moving between the street trees and the river red gums. The other two can be spread across the site.

Rainbow lorikeets (trichoglossus moluccanus) are the only reliable parrots, though eastern rosella (platycercus eximius) are an occasional presence. Neither commonly uses the zone and instead are more likely to be observed passing overhead. Any others – long-billed corella (cacatua tenuirostris), sulphur-crested cockatoo (c. galerita), musk lorikeet (trichoglossus concinnus) – are only incidental records.

Welcome swallows (hirundo neoxena) can often be seen hawking over the river or above the canopy. On the water itself, Pacific black duck (anas superciliosa) and dusky moorhen (gallinula tenebrosa) are the most reliable presence, with occasional visits from little pied cormorant (microcarbo melanoleucos), little black cormorant (phalacrocorax sulcirostris) and Australasian darter (anhinga novaehollandiae).

The Main Yarra Trail between Johnston Street and Dights Falls is probably the most reliable place within Yarra Bend to observe willie wagtails (rhipidura leucophrys). There have consistently been between two and six in this zone, typically split evenly between the Johnston Street Bridge (A), the Turner Street Ramp (C), and the bend below the falls. All three pairs have been observed nesting in recent years.

As well as willie wagtails, pied currawongs (strepera graculina), Australian magpies (gymnorhina tibicen) and tawny frogmouths (podargus strigoides) have also been recorded nesting here, particularly in the river red gums around the Turner Street ramp (D).

In both July 2024 and July 2025 a female pink robin (petroica rodinogaster) has been a reliable presence here. Other winter visitors include golden whistler (pachycephala pectoralis), eastern spinebill (acanthorhynchus tenuirostris), red-browed finch (neochmia temporalis) and grey fantail (rhipdura albiscapa), including the Tasmania subspecies (r. a. albiscapa).

A formal survey of the site was completed by April Newton and Jonathan Tickner in 2021-2022.

Both a white-necked heron (ardea pacifica) and yellow-tailed black-cockatoos (zanda funerea) have been observed at this location by the Riverbankers, though not in formal surveys, and as such they are not recorded to the site. This is also true for rare Yarra species like purple-crowned lorikeet (parvipsitta porphyrocephala), which I observed feeding in river red gum canopy at Turner Street in November 2024, and for channel-billed cuckoos (scythrops novaehollandiae), which I’ve seen flying over the site, presumably on their way to a well-known summer roost at Studley Park.

Bird list

Common birds include Pacific black duck, rock dove, spotted dove, silver gull, rainbow lorikeet, superb fairywren, noisy miner, red wattlebird, white-plumed honeyeater, spotted pardalote, white-browed scrubwren, brown thornbill, Australian magpie, pied currawong, willie wagtail, grey fantail, magpie-lark, little raven, welcome swallow, common myna.

Uncommon birds include chestnut teal, tawny frogmouth, dusky moorhen, Australasian darter, little pied cormorant, little black cormorant, white-faced heron, little corella, long-billed corella, sulphur-crested cockatoo, eastern rosella, eastern spinebill (winter), golden whistler (winter), grey butcherbird, grey currawong, common blackbird, red-browed finch (winter).

Rare and vagrant birds include great cormorant, Nankeen night heron, musk lorikeet, black-faced cuckooshrike, pink robin (winter).

Birds photographed within the Riverbankers Site

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Trip Reports featuring the Riverbankers Site

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External links

Abbotsford Riverbankers
Abbotsford Riverbankers on Instagram
Abbotsford Riverbankers on VEFN