Bastion Beach and Point

 We had a break in the damp weather on 25 February so took ourselves for a walk on Bastion Beach.  For reasons outlined below we extended the usual walk to cover the rocks at the Point as well.

The beach was not crowded!  Note also the amount of eel grass washed up as a result of it being swept out of the Mouth.

There have been other people on the beach recently as evidenced by these mini-inuksuks at the mouth.

The Mouth itself is still wide and quite deep.  It is also still cutting down as evidenced by the edges to the channel.

We watched this boat go out to see how navigable the bar was.  Not too spectacular but I suspect equally not for novices.  The bow came a bit more out of the water after I took the photo!

There is a lot of exposed rock at the Point, but the pools continue to be relatively free of life.  Some large crabs were seen so perhaps it is coming back?

I recorded 29 species on the walk which is not a bad total.  I might have got more with a telescope as there seemed to be a few shorebirds I couldn't ID on more distant sandbars.  A Raven posed on the dunes, with the prominent hackles confirming it was an Australian Raven.

We found a family of Red-capped Plovers with a very young chick.

I took this snap primarily for the size comparison between the three species.  When seen on its own I 'feel' that White-faced Herons are quite large birds so its surprising to see the body isn't that much bigger than an Australian Pied Oystercatcher.

A flock of ~5 White-fronted Chats was pleasant.

The reason for visiting the Point was to check the rocks for Tattlers (especially the Wandering Tattler seen recently at Clinton Rocks).  No joy, but there were 7 Willie Wagtails fluttering about.

As a bonus, a seal was happily thermoregulating off the point