Guano - Bird Faeces

Guano and Country: The Story of Bird Faeces in Victoria

Bird life has always been central to the living systems of Victoria. From the pelicans of the wetlands to cockatoos, parrots, swans, and seabirds along the coast, birds shaped both the ecology and cultural rhythms of Country. One of the least recognised but most powerful contributors to these systems was bird faeces — guano. Far from waste, guano formed a vital link in the cycles of fertility, soil enrichment, and aquatic life that sustained both the land and its peoples. Long before colonisation, these natural nutrient flows were understood and respected by Indigenous communities as part of the broader story of interconnection between land, water, and sky. Today, guano is scientifically known as one of the world’s most potent natural fertilisers, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, yet its cultural and ecological importance in pre-colonial Victoria is only beginning to be fully appreciated.

The Science of Guano

Scientifically, bird droppings are a composite of several key materials that make them a natural fertiliser:

• Uric acid (C₅H₄N₄O₃) — the white crystalline waste product that gives guano its colour, rich in nitrogen.

• Organic matter — remnants of undigested food containing carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen compounds.

• Minerals — especially calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and trace elements essential for plant metabolism.
  When guano decomposes, microbes convert uric acid and organic nitrogen into ammonium (NH₄⁺) and nitrate (NO₃⁻), compounds readily absorbed by plants. Over centuries, in places like coastal cliffs, caves, and islands, guano accumulates in thick deposits. These nutrient layers slowly leach into the soil and water, fuelling growth across entire ecosystems — from inland wetlands to marine algal blooms.

In ecological science, guano represents a biogeochemical cycle, where nutrients travel from ocean to bird, from bird to land, and back again through rainfall and runoff. This transfer, sustained by migratory species, demonstrates how energy and matter link all parts of the biosphere — a principle long recognised in Indigenous knowledge systems.

Indigenous Knowledge and Ecological Understanding

For thousands of years, Indigenous communities across Victoria observed these cycles in real time. Along Wadawurrung Country, bird colonies — pelicans, terns, swans, and cormorants — gathered around Lake Connewarre, the Barwon River estuary, and the Bellarine wetlands. These rookeries enriched nearby soils, producing lush vegetation where edible plants like murnong (Microseris walteri) and cumbungi (Typha spp.) thrived.
Women harvesting tubers would have noticed that these areas regenerated quickly and were easier to dig, an early empirical recognition of nutrient cycling. Similar patterns were observed along Wurundjeri Country near the Yarra wetlands and Gunditjmara Country at Budj Bim, where guano-enriched floodplains supported eel traps and plant diversity. In these interconnected systems, birds acted as fertility carriers, transporting marine nutrients inland through droppings, feathers, and carcasses.

Guano was not viewed as a waste product but as part of Country’s regenerative process — a visible expression of the continuous exchange between life forms. In oral traditions, bird colonies were often associated with abundance, renewal, and balance. The Wadawurrung word for pelican, Burrumbeet, connects to places like Lake Burrumbeet, where flocks once darkened the sky and nourished the wetlands below.

Cultural and Practical Uses of Guano

Although detailed ethnographic records are scarce, broader accounts across south-eastern Australia indicate several practical and symbolic uses of guano and bird waste:

• Soil fertility – Soils near rookeries and camps were known for their productivity. Tubers and grains grew strongly there, and people often returned to these sites seasonally to harvest renewed food sources.

• Fire and fuel – Dried bird droppings could be combined with plant matter to kindle small fires in treeless or coastal regions, a technique mirrored in global traditional practices.

• Medicine and healing – Dried and powdered bird droppings, particularly white deposits, were occasionally applied as poultices for skin and wound treatment. Their alkaline and desiccant properties aided in drying and disinfecting lesions.

• Ceremony and symbolism – Birds such as pelicans, gulls, and swans featured in Dreaming narratives across Victoria. Their presence and by-products embodied fertility, reciprocity, and transformation — essential themes within Indigenous cosmology and environmental ethics.

Guano in the Pre-Colonial Landscape

Before colonisation, guano formed a cornerstone of nutrient cycling in Victoria’s ecosystems. Along the Volcanic Plains, Port Phillip wetlands, and Bass Strait islands, the interplay between bird life and soil created some of the most biologically rich environments in southern Australia.

• Soil enrichment – Coastal headlands and inland rookeries accumulated nitrogen-rich guano, sustaining flowering plants and groundcover species.

• Wetland productivity – Nutrient runoff from guano-fed sites supported algae and plankton blooms, feeding aquatic invertebrates, eels, and fish — vital food sources for Indigenous communities.

• Vegetation succession – Plant communities near bird nesting zones often showed distinctive growth patterns, forming circular fertility gradients visible even today in aerial imagery.
  In this sense, birds acted as both farmers and fertilisers, shaping vegetation mosaics across Country in harmony with fire, wind, and water.

Colonial Disruption and Guano Extraction

The arrival of colonisation in the 19th century dramatically altered these natural cycles. European settlers, recognising guano’s agricultural potential, began mining deposits from offshore islands and coastal caves.
By the 1840s and 1850s, islands in Bass Strait and Western Victoria became sites of commercial guano extraction, their ecosystems stripped of centuries of nutrient accumulation (McCann 1998). This exploitation paralleled global trade in guano from Peru and the Pacific Islands, part of what scientists later called the global nitrogen revolution.
At the same time:

• Seabird colonies were decimated through egg collection, hunting, and habitat clearing.

• Introduced species like foxes, cats, and rats devastated nesting sites.

• Wetlands were drained across the Western District and Port Phillip Bay for agriculture, severing nutrient and hydrological links.

• Synthetic fertilisers introduced in the 20th century replaced guano but caused soil salinity, acidification, and ecological imbalance (Williams & Clarke 1996).
  The result was not only environmental loss but also cultural disconnection, as Indigenous peoples were displaced from nutrient-rich areas that had sustained both plant life and social identity.

Wider Australian Examples

Elsewhere in Australia, Indigenous relationships with guano were equally profound:

• On Yolŋu Country in Arnhem Land, seabird rookeries on offshore islands were protected as sacred places tied to creation stories.

• On Murujuga (the Dampier Archipelago), shell middens and guano-rich soils reveal millennia of coexistence between humans and seabird colonies.

• In Tasmania, muttonbird rookeries served as seasonal harvest sites where both meat and nutrient-rich soil were valued.
  These examples demonstrate a shared continental understanding: bird waste was not refuse but a vital ecological and spiritual connector between sea, land, and people.

Modern Science and Ecological Restoration

Today, guano remains one of the most potent natural fertilisers, prized in organic and regenerative agriculture. In Victoria, both Indigenous and Western science are converging around the goal of restoring natural nutrient cycles through:

• Wetland rehabilitation — reintroducing bird colonies to coastal and inland water systems.

• Eel aquaculture revival — led by communities such as the Gunditjmara, reconnecting water, fish, and nutrient flows (Pascoe 2014).

• Native grassland restoration — revitalising murnong fields and re-establishing fire and fertility cycles on volcanic plains.

• Sustainable farming research — integrating guano and organic nutrient systems to reduce reliance on synthetic fertilisers.
  Such initiatives reflect a scientific reawakening to principles long embedded in Indigenous land management: fertility arises not from extraction, but from balance, reciprocity, and renewal.

Chemistry and Ecology: How Guano Sustains Life

Guano’s power lies in its nutrient chemistry:

• Nitrogen (N) — boosts leaf and stem growth by increasing chlorophyll production.

• Phosphorus (P) — supports root and flower development, essential for crops and tubers like murnong.

• Potassium (K) — enhances drought resistance and disease tolerance.
  When spread naturally across landscapes, guano also increases soil microbial activity, carbon retention, and moisture absorption — improving resilience against erosion and drought.
  From a systems science perspective, guano acts as an energy transfer mechanism, moving solar energy (captured by plants) through birds, back to soil and water — completing a biochemical circle of life that sustains entire ecosystems.

Restoring Country and Fertility

In recent years, Traditional Owners and conservationists have begun reviving rookeries and wetland habitats across Victoria. At sites like Lake Connewarre, Western Treatment Plant wetlands (Werribee), and Tower Hill, bird populations are recovering, naturally re-enriching soils.
Community-led projects on Wadawurrung and Gunditjmara Country integrate Indigenous ecological knowledge with modern conservation — recognising guano not as waste, but as an ancient form of Country’s nourishment. These restorations symbolise more than environmental healing; they restore cultural relationships and ecological dialogue between humans and the birds that sustain life.

Conclusion

Guano — humble bird faeces — is both material and metaphor: a symbol of the deep interdependence between sky, land, and water. To Indigenous peoples of Victoria, it was part of the cycle of growth, fire, and renewal; to science, it reveals the nitrogen-phosphorus chemistry of life itself. Colonisation disrupted these cycles through extraction, clearing, and disconnection. Yet, the principles of Country endure. By restoring bird habitats, wetlands, and natural nutrient flows, Victoria can once again honour the ancient relationship between birds and earth — a reminder that even the smallest trace of life carries the power to renew the world.

References

Clarke, PA 2007, Aboriginal People and Their Plants, Rosenberg Publishing, Sydney.
Gott, B 2015, ‘Aboriginal use of plants in south-eastern Australia’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol. 127, no. 2, pp. 64–73.
Pascoe, B 2014, Dark Emu: Black Seeds – Agriculture or Accident?, Magabala Books, Broome.
McCann, J 1998, Guano and the Global Nitrogen Cycle, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.
Williams, J & Clarke, M 1996, Vegetation Changes in Southeastern Australia Since European Settlement, CSIRO, Melbourne.
Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) 2021, Native Vegetation and Wetlands of Victoria, State of Victoria.

Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 September 2025)

MLA

Sharing the truth of Indigenous and colonial history through film, education, land, and community.
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.