Figbirds and Bastion

I began the day with a visit to the fig tree.  No Topknots but an array of Figbirds.  This male took his loot across the road to pose in a palm tree.

As the sky was overcast I had to post-edit the exposure of the snap to show his colours. Thus the colourless sky.

In the afternoon we went to Bastion Point, with an aim of looking at some rocks to  identify ythe features shown in this webpage.

The weather was quite warm when we arrived - about 29^oC with a strong NW wind.  When I got to the furthest point on the blue line the wind suddenly swung round 180^o and the howled along the beach, dropping the temperature about 10^oC.

An earlier visitor had been creative.

A serrated shore platform: most this had been covered with sand.

Honeycomb weathering

I don't know the technical name for this form of weathering but is looks attractive..

The tide was not as low as we were expecting.  A pool had a colony of Southern Fan Worms (Sabellastarte australensis)

We spoke with a snorkeller, who turned out to be a chef, looking for seaweed to cook.  He pointed out this lot of Neptunes Pearls (Hormosira banksii) which he assured us was very tasty when fresh and ate some he had found underwater.

I was surprised to see a Great Egret on the rocks.

Not so surprised by the Eastern Reef Egret.  A second bird flew in on the gust of the Southerly.

Sooty Oystercatchers have been thin on the ground recently so it was pleasing to see 2 on Tpip Beach.

I was hopeful of an interesting Cormorant in this group but, alas, only Great and Little Pied.

The aim of this photo was to catch the blast of sand being blown by the gust.  I think it sort of gets the idea.