birding...

The Coral Sea Islands Territory includes a group of small tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia, around 18° S 152° E. There are about 30 separate reefs and atolls, 12 of them wholly submerged or drying only during low tide, and 18 others with a total of about 51 islets and cays (18 alone on the atoll Lihou Reef and Cays), some of which are vegetated. The atolls exhibit a wide range of size, from a few kilometres in diameter to perhaps the second largest atoll in the world by total area (including lagoon): Lihou Reef, with a lagoon size of 100 by 30 km and an area of 2,500 km². The islands are all very low.

The atolls are scattered over a sea area of about 1 million km². The Willis Islets (Willis Group) are important nesting areas for birds and turtles, but their natural resources are negligible. They comprise less than three square kilometres of land. There is no port or harbour, only offshore anchorage.

The territory was created in 1969 by the Coral Sea Islands Act (before, the area was considered part of Queensland) and extended in 1997 to include Middleton Reef and Elizabeth Reef nearly 800 km further South in the Tasman Sea. The two latter reefs are indeed much closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales (about 150 km) than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory, Cato Island. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, belonging to Queensland instead. The outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.

The territory is a possession of Australia, administered from Canberra by the Australian Department of the Environment, which has control over the activities of visitors. Defence is the responsibility of Australia, and the territory is visited regularly by the Royal Australian Navy. Australia maintains automatic weather stations on many of the isles and reefs, and claims a 200 nautical mile (370 km) exclusive fishing zone. There is no economic activity, and only a staff of three or four people to run the meteorological station on Willis Island (South Islet), established in 1921. However, a group of gay activists have settled on Cato Island and claimed the islands as a sovereign gay territory!