The immediate thought was that a lot of sand had been washed off the beach. This is exemplified by the sand bank on the right of this image and the exposed rocks towards the sea.
Later in the walk we went to the cliff and it was evident there had been deposition as well as erosion. The red line indicates the 'normal' sand level. Clearly waves have chucked a lot of sand up as well as subsequently washing a lot out.
The rocks seemed to be damp (probably from the sea spray - see below) which made them particularly colourful.
The walk down the beach was uneventful. The only notable item was the total lack of Australian Pied Oystercatchers: a flock of about 12 has been on the beach for the last few months. At the far end there was a large collection of seaweed.
It was of two species. Close to the water line it was what I call Bull Kelp but is actually Southern Bull Kelp. Looking to Wikipedia it emerges that this is a genus of which it seems that the species here is Durvillaea amatheiae. Further from the water the darker heap is bladder wrack (which seems to be the basic Fucus vesiculosus also evident in the UK). Here is a close up the transition heap.
There were very few birds around: I think they must all be up at the opened Inlet feeding on the exposed sandbars. The rocks at the Western end had a few Cormorants.
The shadow confused my count briefly.
Frances was examining a washed up sponge when a small passenger jumped out. It posed nicely but the again shadows again caused confusion: in this case shadows of the legs.
A large cuttlefish blade also had passengers. I had never noticed before that the attachments seem to have cut into the 'bone'.
Although the sea didn't appear to be rough (especially compared to what was going on a week ago) when we were looking into the sun there was a fine mist blowing off the beach, giving a rather ethereal look to the burnt out Melaleuca.
After a fruitless drive around the gun club track (no birds at all) I said I was thinking of experimenting with taking a kayak down the hill on wheels. This led Frances to decide she'd like to go for a pedal as well. So we hooked up the trailer and took ourselves off to Fisheries Jetty. The image of our route from eBird is incomplete as I didn't start recording birds until well into the outing. The red dashes give an idea of the first part of the trip.
The aim was to around Rabbit Island and then see what else looked promising.
I suggested that it would be good to head for the small islands opposite the wharf but it seems that with water level having dropped a metre our pedal-paddles were in danger of grounding out (at the point where the track shows a circle) so they were clipped up and the double blades came in to play. Hakuna matata.
After all that exercise our enjoyment of a glass of red was well supported by a very spiffy sunset.
A crescent moon is just visible in this image
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome but if I decide they are spam or otherwise inappropriate they will not be approved.