A somewhat drier and bird-enhanced day

 It was still bucketing down at 0700 ...

... so we deferred our walk for a while.  By about 0830 it has calmed down so we donned the rain gear and took off.  There was a fair amount of water around.  This was running out of the gully on the opposite side of Angophora Drive to our place.

It went under Lakeside Drive and into Bottom Lake.

Someone's drain was running well!

Goodbye to the Jetty for a while.  The level of the Inlet at the official gauge is 90cm (up from 30 cm a couple of days ago).

The Lagoon boardwalk is managing to stay above the fray at present.

Lakeside Drive past Broome St is getting a bit damp.  This is unusual with the Mouth completely open.

A little later in the day I went out, so that people didn't start calling me a wimp, or otherwise dissing my manliness.  First stop was the wharf to check the gauge.  The parking lot is under threat!

Then to Captain Stevenson's Point to check for terns on the sandbars.  Neither terns nor sandbars were available.

It is a tad difficult to pick the mouth due to the height of the water this was about high tide.  My estimate was that it was at least 100 m wide and running very strongly.

On to Betka which was open again and running very well

I tried a seawatch at Fisherman's Point,but all the pelagic birds were well out to sea  so I didn't stay long.  I decided to drive the Gun Club Track, realising that it was going to be a bit slippery due to the rain.  There was a lot of water running down the road and the track along the fence was in deed greasy.  However, that ceased to be a concern when a female Flame Robin moved along the fence in front of me.  A strong contender for Bird of the Day.

I then saw what might have been a male Flame Robin on the wooden fence around the yellow phallic object,  It was too distant for my binoculars to resolve so I got out my telescope.  By the time I had that set the bird had gone so I scanned the heath  and found a Tawny-crowned Honeyeater.

That took over as Bird of the Day, as I am hopeful of seeing a Flame on the way to Canberra.

In the afternoon we went for a walk to the beach at Bastion Point.  It was very well endowed with foam.

Out at the Mouth small plovers were scuttling around in the clumps of foam.  They were doing a good impersonation of Sanderlings, but I couldn't persuade myself .....  The next images are of a Double-banded Plover.

This one is a well coloured Red-capped Plover

Bothe these species were in numbers on the inside of the Mouth, where the water was very high.

While no sandbars were visible it was clear that the water was  only shallow where the flock of Royal Spoonbills (usually seen at the Broome St Lagoon) was standing.

At that point Frances asked "What sort of Egret is that?".  It took me a couple of goes to get on to the bird - a bit surprising as it was only about 40 metres away - but then it was clearly not a Cattle or Great Egret.  The colour of the bill made it clearly a Little Egret (confirming that it wasn't just a small egret). 

A size comparison with Bar-tailed Godwits.

A view of the Mouth with attendant Pelicans and Cormorants. 

As I have never recorded a Little Egret at Mallacoota (and only ticked them a couple of times anywhere) that became bird of the day. It is strange how occasionally the uncommon birds turn up in numbers - must be something to do with the weather.