Seagulls greet me at the Nobbies. “Nibble Nobby’s Nuts”. They’re scavenging – they march expectantly over to the car with a demanding demeanor. They’d surely take nuts if I had them. Hold on – what did I just say?
I’m here to see the seals, supposedly the largest group of fur seals in all of A’stralia. Which means also, of course, the most, and largest, Great Whites.
Phillip Island reminds me of New England isles like Star(r), but maybe that’s just because the sea just blew in and it’s cold and drizzly and windy as George Bush on a bender. But, in all fairness, it’s similar in other aspects too: near-deserted roads that stretch off straight
delivering you now and again to the entrance points to very cold-looking beaches.
I’ve just come from seeing the koalas.
Beautiful little critters.
I was told by a very friendly employee of the Reserve (everyone on this island is nice, from the woman who told me I’ve seen more of Australia than she has to the guy at the bike shop who gave me an unspoken 50% discount on my hoodie) that it’s merely a myth that koalas are drunk / high all the time from their constant consumption of Eucalyptus leaves, yet true that they have been known to sleep up to 20 hours a day. Especially the teenagers.
Well, following in the grand Australian tradition of harmless falsity, there were no frickin’ seals at Seal Rock. There were, however, plenty of seagulls.
It’s their nesting season right now, and the grassy knolls overlooking the Nobbies
were alive with gulls – parents and babies. And the babies were pretty damn cute, all fuzzy and ruffled.
I, of course, got dive-bombed by many a protective parent
but had the good fortune not to get swerved on and not to get blown straight off the bluffs into the turbulent waters below.
While some might vehemently disagree, I am of the mind that seagulls are very interesting birds (I like pigeons too) and thus I snapped about 100 photos of them, mainly of the little buggers getting blown in the “breeze”.
I stopped into Cowes (a nice little town with cypress-lined main streets)
to have a bite to eat and much-needed Cappuccino (I’m wearing more clothes than I have to date in Australia) and now I’m off to see the Penguin Parade. The sun is coming back out just in time to set over the ocean,
and it looks to be a beautiful night ahead.
A couple of interesting facts. Little Penguins (what a creative name!) weigh about 1 kg, stand about a foot tall, and are the smallest of the 17 species of penguin that are known.
Their cohabitants Shore Plovers, a.k.a. Mutton Birds, share the dunes with them.
These amazing little birds migrate over 14,000 kilometers from the Alaskan Aleutians to Phillip Island, a 6-8 week flight! Then they vanish, for what is called their “honeymoon period”. It is thought that they spend this time, about a month or so, to fly to and from Antarctica. Amazing. I wish I could fly.
But then, come to think if it, so do the Penguins. They emerge, nightly at around dusk, from the ocean and hobble up the beach, wary of predators, to find their hole-in-the-ground homes. Some are greeted by the calls of mates left behind, making for quite a racket when the intrepid little guys arrive.
The first group arrive as if from out of thin water. One second the beach was clear, and the next there were about 30 penguins standing there, getting sloshed around in the surf.
“Little, indeed,” someone behind me remarked. How very astute.
Slowly, ever so tentatively, they made their way up the beach. A few steps onto the sand, about ten of them turned and high-tailed it back into the water. As the first group passed the viewing platform, the stragglers huddled in the surf zone, waiting for more reinforcements to emerge from the sea.
After about twenty minutes, with no other groups arriving, these dozen or so started, stealthily, to creep up the beach. The play-by-play provided by the people sitting next to me was priceless.
“There they are.”
“Oh, some are headed back.”
“Oh wait – they’re moving.”
“Here they come – they’re headed up the beach now.”
“See – look at them. Here they come.”
It was like listening to 3 year olds watching TV.
Barred from taking any photos, as flashes spook the little guys, I just sat and observed. I truly could watch penguins all night, waddling along like geriatric disco dancers, with their wide-set legs and arms akimbo like they’re gearing up and readying their little wings to take flight. They’re only about as big as large gulls, but they exude such a large amount of personality.
I picked a group to stick with, and followed them up the boardwalk toward their burrows. They stopped about halfway up to preen, feeling safe now, off the beach and out of plain sight of predators. They glistened in the pale cast of the viewing lights, their backs dark blue and their stomachs a whitish/silverfish sheen. And then they waddled on. Their movement was stop and go, stop and go. One stopped for a split second to splatter the grass with a little bit of white liquid shit. And then ventured forth into the night.
The sounds coming from the dunes were amazing. It was, in the truest sense of the word, cacophonic, like a chorus of opera singers with high-pitched snores, all dreaming of chugging through their nightly arias. Quite amazing. Quite satisfied, I hopped in my car (making sure before starting it up to check underneath for any stray penguins)
and headed back to Melbourne for to catch a morning flight.
If you would like to learn more about the Little Penguins, visit http://www.penguinfoundation.org
Other Fotos from Phillip Island:
Highland Cattle:
A baby:
A demonstration of how that baby was made:
Moto dude practicing: (Phillip Island hosts a giant Moto race each year)
The Victoria Bitter Gull, a sad sight:
A sign from God:
