Quarry Beach

The day's second exercise walk was to Quarry Beach.  An interesting sighting was an Eastern Reef Egret working from a rock in the wash zone.

 A little further down the beach the resident flock of Australian Pied Oystercatchers has grown to 11 birds including at least 2 flagged birds and Stumpy.  The last mentioned is so called as it has lost both feet: apart from a tendency to sink into the sand it seems to be going OK.  I could only fit 10 of the them into the frame.

We have been a little intrigued why they seem to be feeding high up the beach rather than on the worms and shellfish at the water's edge.  The species account in HANZAB appears to confirm that feeding is most commonly in the wash zone.

Moving down the beach there were 7 Great Cormorants on the usual rock towards the Secret Beach end.  Here is one of them, plus evidence of others.

 plus one Little Pied Cormorant.

 A lot of kelp had been washed up, but surprisingly little else of interest.

There were quite a few tracks on the beach   I suspect - from the lack of web - the bird prints are most likely Ravens.  The little dots are intriguing: I first thought crabs, but they would leave pairs of track lines.  My next thought is some form of gastropod although I cant quick work out how the dots are made.