Buckingham Bay is a large, rectangular bay on the northern coast of Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...

, in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

 of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It lies 520 km east of Darwin

Darwin, Northern Territory

Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...

 and 120 km west of Nhulunbuy

Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory

Nhulunbuy is the name of the township created on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory of Australia when a bauxite mine and deep water port were established nearby in the late 1960s...

.

Description

The bay is about 40 km long and 16 km wide. It is aligned from south-west where the Buckingham River enters, to north-east where it opens into the Arafura Sea

Arafura Sea

The Arafura Sea lies west of the Pacific Ocean overlying the continental shelf between Australia and New Guinea.-Geography:The Arafura Sea is bordered by Torres Strait and through that the Coral Sea to the east, the Gulf of Carpentaria to the south, the Timor Sea to the west and the Banda and Ceram...

. It is largely bordered by intertidal mudflat

Mudflat

Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...

s, with patches of mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

s along the lower reaches of the Buckingham River. The saline flats back on to a seasonally inundated floodplain

Floodplain

A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...

. There are scattered patches of dry coastal vine thicket along the margins of the floodplain. The bay and adjoining plains are held by the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Land Trust as Aboriginal

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 freehold land. The nearest communities are Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island

Elcho Island

Elcho Island is an island off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. It is located at the southern end of the Wessel Islands group located in the East Arnhem Region. The island's largest community is the settlement of Galiwin'ku....

 15 km to the north-west, and Gapuwiyak some 25 km to the south.

Birds

The bay’s intertidal mudflats and seasonally flooded coastal plains have been classified by BirdLife International

BirdLife International

BirdLife International is a global Partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources...

 as an Important Bird Area

Important Bird Area

An Important Bird Area is an area recognized as being globally important habitat for the conservation of bird populations. Currently there are about 10,000 IBAs worldwide. The program was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife International...

 (IBA). The area covered by the IBA is 32,642 ha. The bay is especially significant for the migratory

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 wader

Wader

Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...

s, or shorebirds, that breed in northern Asia and Alaska during the northern summer and spend the non-breeding season in Australia. Up to about 20,000 wades have been recorded on the bay’s mud and saline flats. Species for which count data indicate the site’s global significance include Black-tailed Godwit

Black-tailed Godwit

The Black-tailed Godwit, Limosa limosa, is a large, long-legged, long-billed shorebird first described by Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. It is a member of the Limosa genus, the godwits...

 (6000), Eastern Curlew (700), and Great Knot

Great Knot

The Great Knot, Calidris tenuirostris, is a small wader. It is the largest of the calidrid species.Their breeding habitat is tundra in northeast Siberia. They nest on the ground laying about four eggs in a ground scrape. They are strongly migratory wintering on coasts in southern Asia through to...

 (5000).

Up to 8500 waterbirds have been recorded using the bay, with numbers of Pied Heron

Pied Heron

The Pied Heron , also known as the Pied Egret is a bird found in coastal and subcoastal areas of monsoonal northern Australia as well as some parts of Wallacea and New Guinea.-Taxonomy:...

s being globally significant. A waterbird breeding colony in the mangroves near the mouth of the Buckingham River contained 5500 birds in 1999, predominantly Pied Herons and Intermediate Egret

Intermediate Egret

The Intermediate Egret, Median Egret, or Yellow-billed Egret is a medium-sized heron. It is a resident breeder from east Africa across tropical southern Asia to Australia. It often nests in colonies with other herons, usually on platforms of sticks in trees or shrubs...

s. Other birds for which the site is significant are Brolga

Brolga

The Brolga , formerly known as the "Native Companion", is a bird in the crane family. The bird has also been given the name "Australian Crane", a term coined in 1865 by well-known ornithological artist John Gould in his Birds of Australia.The Brolga is a common gregarious wetland bird species in...

s and Magpie Geese.