Supporting effective water and wetland management for colonial-nesting waterbird species during nesting events requires knowledge of nesting timing, stages, and durations. This information is relevant for when and for how long managed ‘environmental’ water might be useful to support specific nest stages. Effective management also benefits from knowledge of foraging habitat locations and distances from the nest and how they change through the nesting event. Information about where adults are obtaining food for their chicks and themselves, and where juveniles are foraging after they leave the nest site, can be used to decide when and how managed water might be used to support foraging sites and food availability for nesting birds and their chicks to ensure nest success. The environmental characteristics of foraging sites during nesting and how they change over time, together with nest attendance patterns, can indicate when the food and foraging habitat demands of nesting adults and their chicks change and suggest how managed water might be used to support these. Such information could also potentially be used for evaluation of foraging site selection responses to water and site management, and estimation of the likely differences in food availability and rate of food source exhaustion around nesting sites. Satellite GPS telemetry tracking the movements of nesting waterbirds has the potential to provide information for all the above. Here, we present the results of preliminary analyses of satellite GPS location data for three colonial nesting species, the Straw-necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis; ‘SNI’), the Australian white ibis (T. molucca; ‘AWI’) and the Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia; ‘RSB’), describing a) the timing and duration of nesting events; b) nest stages and spatial and temporal nest attendance patterns; and c) foraging distances and habitat use during and immediately after nesting.