Most visitors look at the Cairns Esplanade at low tide, see a vast brown mudflat where they expected a beach, and feel briefly cheated. Then somebody points out that those mudflats are the reason people fly here from other continents, and the whole thing reframes itself.
In August it produced something genuinely remarkable.
The bird that overshot
On Sunday 16 August 2026, birdwatchers Sally Sheldon and Martin Cachard were doing routine monitoring surveys on the Esplanade mudflats when they spotted a common redshank, a migratory shorebird with distinctive orange-red legs.
According to ABC Far North, it is believed to be only the second recorded sighting of the species in Queensland, and the first since 1987, when two were seen at the same spot.
The name is a bit of a joke in an Australian context. The common redshank is common across Europe and Asia, but after breeding in East Asia it normally goes no further south than South-East Asia. Small numbers reach northern Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Queensland is well off the map.
Sally Sheldon of BirdLife Australia told the ABC her feelings were “mixed”, because “you don’t like to see a bird looking slightly confused”.
Professor Richard Fuller of the University of Queensland described the sighting as “highly significant” and said the bird is “extremely rare in Queensland but also across Australia more broadly”. He also made the point that this is not simply a mistake: displacement is part of how migratory birds find new ground, and “part of how they can adapt to a changing world”.
Word went round the twitcher community fast. By the Monday, Sheldon reported at least five birdwatchers with long lenses pointed at the mudflats.
Why the Esplanade is such a good spot
Cairns has one of the largest tidal ranges on the Australian east coast, which is why the water seems to disappear entirely and then come back up to the wall. See our guide to king tides in Cairns for what is going on there.
Those exposed flats are a feeding ground. Around 37 species of migratory shorebird come to Australia to feed and moult during the warmer months after breeding in the northern hemisphere, and the Esplanade is one of the most accessible places in the country to see them. You are not on a boat or up a mountain, you are on a paved boardwalk in the middle of a city, twenty metres from a coffee.
That accessibility is the whole point. Very few world-class birding sites are also a five minute walk from your hotel.
How to actually do it
- Go at the right tide. Low to mid tide, and ideally a tide that is coming in, which pushes the birds closer to the boardwalk. Dead low tide sends them out to the far edge of the flats where you will need a scope.
- Early or late. Better light, fewer people, more active birds.
- Bring binoculars. Ordinary ones are fine. Without them you will see brown specks.
- Walk the northern end. The stretch of boardwalk north of the Lagoon towards the yacht club generally has the better viewing.
- Stay on the boardwalk. Do not walk out onto the flats. Beyond disturbing feeding birds, it is estuarine crocodile habitat, which our swimming safety guide covers properly.
Species you have a reasonable chance of seeing without any luck at all include the eastern curlew, various godwits, sandpipers, stints, and the great and pied egrets. The redshank you will need to be extremely lucky.
Is it still there?
Unknown, and that is the nature of it. Professor Fuller said the bird might settle back into its regular migration, or it might hang around for years. If you are in town with binoculars, the Esplanade mudflats cost nothing to check, and there is a decent local birding community on social media that will know before anyone else.
More free things to do around town in our free things to do in Cairns guide, and see the Cairns city guide for what else is on the Esplanade.
Sighting detail and quotes from ABC Far North, 17 August 2026.
