A Long Weekend in SW Victoria: Part 2. Sunrise at Bridgewater Bay

We stayed at The Sea View Lodge in Cape Bridgewater, right on Bridgewater Bay (thanks for the great hospitality Dennis!)

Sea View Lodge, Bridgewater Bay

This made it easy for an early morning walk on the beach to catch the sunrise...one of the advantages of winter is that 'early morning' is after 7:00!

Bridgewater Bay and Cape Bridgewater
Photo courtesy of Joanne Smissen

The colour of the early morning light combined with the reflections in the surface water on the rippled sand, made for some great views of Crested Terns and Silver Gulls but the very low light levels and mostly backlighting meant very slow shutter speeds would be required to adequately expose the birds. To avoid this, I decided to use fill flash to capture the birds and retain the colours in the wet sand. The flash also enables the colours of the birds to be captured vividly.

Crested Tern, Bridgewater Bay

Crested Tern (immature), Bridgewater Bay

Silver Gull, Bridgewater Bay

I had turned off the flash when these two started to perform but by then the light had improved a little allowing me to capture this interaction between adult and juvenile Silver Gulls.

Silver Gull, Bridgewater Bay

There were also some non-avian flyers hanging around.

The rest of the weekend:
Part 1. Cape Nelson
Part 3. Lower Glenelg National Park
Part 4. Shore Birds

Portland coast

After camping out at Bailey's Rocks in Dergholm State Park overnight following yesterday's Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo count, I decided to make the most of the trip to the far SW of the state and check out my favourite spots around the Portland coast in the (somewhat vain it turns out) hope that the wild weather over the last few days had brought some seabirds in close to shore.

First stop was Cape Bridgewater where there are good viewing spots of the ocean at the Blowhole and Petrified Forest. There were quite a few birds but they were a long way offshore making it difficult to identify (and fairly pointless photographing) anything but the largest birds, including several Black-browed Albatross

Black-browed Albatross, Cape Bridgewater, Portland

and this solo Giant Petrel. It was too far away to clearly see the colour of the tip of the bill which is the key distinguishing feature between the Southern and Northern species.

Unidentified Giant Petrel, Cape Bridgewater, Portland

I moved on to Bridgewater Bay where a large flock of Crested Terns was found on the beach in front of the cafe and Life Saving Club.

Crested Tern, Bridgewater Bay, Portland

I last visited this location on Anzac Day 2012 and found a solo White-fronted Tern among a large flock of Crested Terns in the same location. A quick check this time and, sure enough, a solo White-fronted Tern! I cannot believe that this is a coincidence but it is equally amazing if this bird has hung around in the same flock of non conspecifics for two years.

Crested Tern + White-fronted Tern, Bridgewater Bay, Portland

White-fronted Tern, Bridgewater Bay, Portland

Cape Nelson was equally poor for offshore birdwatching but it did provide some good sightings of other birds including this Brown Falcon that allowed me to get really close in the car before both of us were spooked by another car whose driver thought it amusing to toot the horn as he drove by. I can't fathom what makes people think that is funny/clever but it did give me a great take-off shot, again confirming that birds of prey take-off on the wing, rather than jump into the air first as many small passerines seem to do.

Brown Falcon, Cape Nelson, Portland

There were many Singing Honeyeaters in the coastal scrub near the lighthouse.

Singing Honeyeater, Cape Nelson, Portland

Last stop was Portland Harbour, where I usually manage to find something going on and today was no exception. Three Musk Ducks were cruising around the harbour: two males with partially grown bill-flaps

Musk Duck (male), Portland Harbour

and a female.

Musk Duck (female), Portland Harbour

I know that Musk Dusks are reported to occur "occasionally in the sea" but this is the first time I have seen it. More exciting, however was when, later in the afternoon, I managed to grab this shot of one of the ducks with a crab - not a great shot as it was very dark (just before sunset with a heavy overcast sky).

Musk Duck, Portland Harbour

The other attraction in the harbour during late afternoon is the returning fishing boats that attract a lot of avian attention when the day's catch is being processed on the pier. It gives a great opportunity for close-ups and flight shots of gulls

Pacific Gull (immature), Portland Harbour

Pacific Gull, Portland Harbour

Pacific Gull (immature), Portland Harbour

Silver Gull (immature), Portland Harbour

under the ever watchful eyes of some non-avians

Australian Fur Seal, Portland Harbour

 who manage to do well catching the occasional cast-offs from the fisherman.

Australian Fur Seal, Portland Harbour

Portland Seabirds

Having revised my plans for an extended ANZAC day long weekend due to family commitments and abandoned the idea of a shortened camping trip due to the weather, I decided to make the most of the cold, wet and windy conditions by travelling to Portland to check out the seabirds from Cape Nelson and Cape Bridgewater.

The lookout next to the Cape Nelson Lighthouse offers good viewing of a variety of seabirds that often come close to the cliffs. The Australasian Gannet is the most common bird seen around this coast (other than the ubiquitous Silver Gull) due to breeding colonies nearby.

Australasian Gannet, Cape Nelson

It is also common to see several species of albatross, particularly after storms.

Black-browed Albatross, Cape Nelson

There was not much else on offer during the hour I spent here this morning so, with a storm approaching

Cape Nelson

I headed back for the car to wait out the weather at Cape Bridgewater. First stop was the Petrified Forest and Blowholes lookout

Petrified Forest, Cape Bridgewater

Blowholes, Cape Bridgewater

where there was a veritable hive of avian activity with several clusters of birds fishing offshore

and a passing parade of birds flying past approx. 200-300 metres offshore--not great for photography but close enough to be able to identify species (mostly)

Black-browed Albatross, Cape Bridgewater

Black-browed Albatross, Cape Bridgewater

Black-browed Albatross, Cape Bridgewater

Shy Albatross, Cape Bridgewater

Australasian Gannet, Cape Bridgewater

I say "mostly" because there were a few species that, at this distance, were hard to identify with confidence

I could identify three species of shearwaters: Short-tailed, Fluttering and Hutton's with careful examination of underbody and underwing colouration using binoculars but at this distance and viewed mostly from above, it's difficult to tell which is which in photographs. I am fairly confident that these two were Short-tailed Shearwaters based on their dark colouration under the wings and body (seen in other photos in the same sequence)

Short-tailed Shearwater, Cape Bridgewater

Similarly, this juvenile Giant-Petrel is difficult to identify to species without closer examination of the bill colouration

Giant-Petrel, Cape Bridgewater

and even 4x magnification of the original image does not really help much, although I would lean towards Southern Giant-Petrel as the tip of the bill looks closer to greenish than dark pink of the Northern species.

However, the following bird is was a complete mystery to me

Kelp Gull (3rd year immature?), Cape Bridgewater

UPDATE

Thanks to all who have advised that this bird is an immature Kelp Gull - much appreciated. A few people have asked to see more. Unfortunately, the bird was a fair way out to sea and is tiny in the full frame so I don't have anything much better than what was posted here but I have put together a sequence of unedited 100% crops:

I was going to walk to the Seal Colony but the weather turned nasty again so I decided to head back to civilisation to find something for lunch. On arriving back at Bridgewater Bay, I noticed a large flock of Crested Terns on the beach

Crested Tern, Bridgewater Bay

Among them was a single White-fronted Tern (it pays to take time to look carefully through large flocks)

White-fronted Tern, Bridgewater Bay

UPDATE
I originally ID'd this bird as a Common Tern but after opinions from others I checked out the field guides in more detail and am now happy it's a WFT (I know, its species is not dependent on my happiness...but...I should have checked more carefully in the first place!)

Next stop Mt Richmond National Park.