The Birds of Simpsons Bay

[khiemtran]

Saturday morning and there's barely a breath of wind on Port Hacking.




We've launched our kayak from Bonnie Vale, just near Bundeena.



The smooth waters are perfect for paddling and the standup paddle boarders are making the most of it.



Today, we're just taking it easy though. We've come to take a look at the birds around Simpsons Bay.


Besides the everpresent gulls, there are crested terns, pied oystercatchers and eastern curlews.



Landing on the spit for a closer look.



On the other side of the spit, a channel flows back into the Royal National Park, ending up at The Basin.



Around that point, my camera battery died, so I switched to my iPhone. The inbuilt camera doesn't quite capture what it was like to paddle through the mangroves with the water perfectly clear at high tide. We also had a close look at the bridge that spanned the channel to The Basin. There seemed to be some sort of weir under the bridge and, with the incoming tide, a mini rapid had formed beneath it. Another adventure for another day...



By the time we're back at Bonnie Vale, the clouds have parted and it's getting warm. Time to head back to civilisation...

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Birdwatching! I want to do more of it. Today we took our "traditional" Christmas felucca ride and saw several pied kingfishers behind a little artificial island. One of these days, I want to rent a felucca and ask the captain to moor it behind that island so I can watch birds (and hopefully photograph a couple. :P )

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, we are really getting in bird watching now. It was interesting that we've been on that river lots of times now, but the terns, oystercatchers and curlews are only found in that one part of it. We also got to watch a crested tern diving for fish in the surf on the way back. The water was very shallow, but it was diving from several metres in the air.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Sounds like your birdwatching day was lovely too! Now I'm going to image-search pied kingfisher.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love the different colors and textures of the water in all the different photos, the tiny houses (and one minivan?) on the coast, and the folks doing the paddle boarding. And oyster catchers visit the Gulf Coast, too :-)