Beach Day: Crested Terns

On a free day, with some good sunshine, a place I like to check out is on the end of a little point on Port Phillip Bay.
Because of the formation of the area with a long tongue of basalt from ages past volcanic eruptions, there is a mudflat that extends out several hundred metres. On low tide the flats are well exposed and some of the rock edges allow the birds to rest out of the water.

A small colony of Greater Crested Terns are regulars, but recently over summer they have been away on nesting duties, as there is no suitable area nearby.

So it was good to walk out on the damp sand and sit on the rocks with the Terns and watch them preen and hunt and interact with their noisy, always crying young.

With so many gulls around any catch that was made was hotly pursued by the gulls. And at one point a frustrated Tern decided to attack the annoying gull.

And all too soon the tide began to flow in, and it was time to slosh back to the dry sand.

Enjoy

Click on a photo for a larger view in a slide show.

3 thoughts on “Beach Day: Crested Terns

  1. Great aerial captures David and so true to form the gulls ate the Noisy Miners of the coast. Aggressive and opportunistic. In fact we saw a group of gulls attack a stray Kelp Gull as we watched from a restaurant on the river while waiting for lunch. They kept driving it away and watching what it was eating. You captured the wing spread and attitudes beautifully. We are recovering from excess rain and not a chance to get out and bird.

    Like

  2. A fine series of images, David! The Silver Gulls are always wanting any catch by other birds!

    You captured the action wonderfully!

    Like

  3. I’m late to the party again – my inbox is getting away from me! What a lovely series of shots here David. I particularly like the two of the parent feeding a young one.

    Like

Leave a reply to aussiebirder Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.