Birds. Who doesn’t love birds?

They’re the colour and movement that draw people to the river. They’re the ambassadors for wildlife and nature experiences for people in the city. They’re so important, both for ecosystems and for our relationships to these places. When you go to the river, or listen to this show, birds are what you hear.

In today’s episode we head out onto the river for a morning of birdwatching with the Mudcrabs’ bird-obsessed offshoot, the Mudlarks. Since 2019 they’ve been meeting once a month without fail, come rain, hail or, like this morning, beautiful shine, and the data they’ve collected on their surveys has had a huge impact in tracking the returning health of the river.

We also have a report on the recent Cooks River Valley Association meeting, featuring a talk from local historian Paul Irish about the Aboriginal history of the river.

And we have all your monthly River News for April 2026.

Guests: Chris Rapp and Jamie Honan

Host/producer: Niall Edwards-FitzSimons

Music by: riverkid

With thanks to Jennifer Kent, Doug Benson, Simin Ordokhani, David Noble, Michael Bui, Richard Horsburgh, Louise Roberts and everyone else I spoke to from the Mudlarks, and also to Paul Irish, Ann Leahy, Peter Munro, Pilar Basa and Zoe Ferguson.

This episode was produced on the lands of the Gadigal and the Bidjigal and we pay respect to elders past and present.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.