At sunset on Darwin's Lee Point Beach, thousands of shorebirds crowd together at the high tide line, and swirl up into a coordinated dance across the sky when disturbed.
"There's often 10, 15, species in a flock like this," Charles Darwin University Professor of Conservation Stephen Garnett said.
"We can see red-necked stint, ruddy turnstone, greater and lesser sand plover, great knots, red knots, sanderling, there's whimbrel and godwit."
But he said the large numbers of migratory birds, which roost here at this time of year, belie big drops in their populations globally.
Shorebirds including the curlew sandpiper, ruddy turnstone, sharp-tailed sandpiper and common greenshank and grey plover are among birds that have sharply declined.
"They rely on a whole chain of habitats between here and their breeding grounds to feed, and they've been losing areas in coastal China and Korea, and when you cut out one link in that chain, they can't bridge it," Professor Garnett said.
"The Arctic is also warming very fast and so that's changing the amount of food that's available to them, and then when they come down here, they suffer from disturbance on beaches."
Professor Garnett and Birdlife Australia have collaborated with bird scientists around the country to conclude that 96 of the nation's 314 most threatened birds have become more endangered over the past decade.
He said the Alaskan bar-tailed godwit's position has dropped most markedly of any bird, moving from near threatened to endangered, because its numbers have been reduced by half over 10 years.
For shorebirds, according to Professor Garnett, even being forced to take flight and burn energy in reaction to dogs running along beaches could mean they don't have enough energy stores to migrate back to the northern hemisphere.
"If they don't build up their reserves before they migrate, if they're 10 per cent underweight then they won't breed, if they're 20 per cent underweight, we never see them again, they die on the way," he said.
He said the pace of decline of species all over Australia was accelerating.
Species in decline include swift parrots hit by logging, and Kangaroo Island emu-wrens decimated by bushfires.
"We've all got to have a responsibility to look after those birds and that means working together," Professor Garnett said.
"It doesn't matter about the politics. The birds don't pay any attention to that.
"There's got to be proper funding, built on proper research."
The Birdlife Australia study, which is updated every 10 years, found the lot of 23 birds has improved, in many cases due to conservation efforts.
Protection of forests has increased Albert's lyrebirds, and removing feral predators from Macquarie Island has helped the black browed albatross recover.
Around the country, volunteer groups have also been working to build nest boxes, and help protect the habitat of birds at risk.
On Victoria's Surf Coast at Airey's Inlet, Janice Carpenter and her conservation group Friends of the Hooded Plovers are protecting nests and chicks.
"So we stand, one person either end of about a 200-metre stretch of beach, and warn people that the hooded plovers are there, and we also ask them to turn their dogs back," she said.
"The main thing is to educate people, and once they see what's happening we find they're much more responsive.
Professor Garnett, however, is warning on-the-ground habitat protection will only go so far.
He said greenhouse gas emissions will have to be reduced if species like golden bowerbirds, which are being hit by climate change in North Queensland, are to be saved long-term.
"I've been shocked by the impact of climate change this time round," he said.
"We don't really know how the climate change is affecting them.
"We don't know whether it's killing the birds directly or whether it's changing the food supplies so that they can't feed their young."
Professor Garnett said in Victoria's Mallee saltbush country volunteer groups have recorded how increasing temperatures are killing the insects on which many birds rely.
"We're struggling to know what to do, but ultimately, we've got to stop warming the planet."
