It’s official – Lake Brewster is the No. 1 spot for pelican breeding in inland Australia.
Lake Brewster is a storage reservoir located halfway between Lake Cargelligo and Hillston. It is used in conjunction with Wyangala Dam and Lake Cargelligo to regulate the Lachlan River and provide water for downstream users and the environment.
Completed in 1952, Lake Brewster holds 150,000 megalitres when full and is managed by WaterNSW. The Lake is shallow (generally less than 3 metres deep), and because the water level fluctuates due to filling and draining it functions as a wetland that provides a diversity of habitat for many native species.
Following a few wetter-than-average years, Australian pelicans have converged on Lake Brewster and formed massive breeding colonies on the exposed banks within it in spring and summer. The largest aggregation (49,500 nests in 2022/23) started arriving in September 2022 and then hatched and reared large numbers of ‘pinkies’ until the cold weather set in the following April.
NSW Government’s senior environmental water manager in the Lachlan – Dr Joanne Lenehan – recognized the importance of the breeding events early on and scraped and saved to make sure they were monitored. As such, both the birds and the fishes upon which they rely have been monitored regularly throughout all events, and Jo has also worked closely with WaterNSW to ensure that the pelicans have just enough water – but not too much – to maximise recruitment success.
Lake Brewster is ideal for pelican breeding, ironically because the exposed banks that were created during construction provide perfect predator-free islands – a must for birds that nest on the ground.
The second – and also ironic – key to pelican breeding success appears to be an almost never-ending supply of correctly-sized fish. Sometimes the birds feed on native bony herring, but as summer wears on they seem to rely almost exclusively on one of Australia’s worst invasive species: carp.
Government agencies, universities and private contractors have all contributed to the success of the pelican events at Lake Brewster to-date, and a great deal has been learnt: the Lake is now regarded as the most important inland pelican rookery in Australia.
Hopefully the pelicans will return to Lake Brewster on a regular basis into the future.

Contributed by Dr Adam Kerezsy (University of Canberra FlowMER Program, Lake Cargelligo Landcare and Dr Fish Contracting).