Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Hail! The Birds!


Today was the first full day back in Sydney after our escape to Byron. The weather this morning was beautiful - clear, sunny, warm, beginning to fell like spring. As the day continued, the clouds gathered in the West, the thunder began, and soon it was hailing! The hail made the University look like a quaint New England college. The temperature plummeted with the hail, and many students were stuck walking through the slushy puddles in flip-flops and shorts.


I've been meaing to talk about the birds in Sydney for awhile now. I sometimes walk to work (about 1 1/2 hours or so) and that journey takes me through Centennial Park, home to most of the birds that live in metropolitan Sydney. In the park, I've seen Australian pelicans (they have the largest beak of any bird), black swans, many types of ducks and geese, cockatoos (both white sulfur crested and black yellow tailed), corellas, rainbow lorikeets, galahs, crested pigeons, kookaburras, purple swamphens, and many others. My favorite are all the parrots, as they have the most personality.
This is a rainbow lorikeet in a coral tree.
A corella looks a bit like a cockatoo, but without the crest on it's head.
In this picture, there are ducks, geese, cockatoos and corellas. Someone had been feeding the birds, and these flocks nearly attacked me looking for snacks.
A cockatoo says hello!
An Australian pelican.

posted by Peggy C. at 10:30 PM

Monday, August 14, 2006

Whale Tales

A long day for Peggy and I here in Byron Bay. We started the morning off by going scuba diving at Julian Rocks, just off the coast in the middle of the bay. The dive spot is called 'the Nursery' because many species of fish bear their spawn there, including the Grey Nurse Shark. We were told that these sharks, however massive, were harmless. This was as we quickly signed our rights away on the liability waiver.

After a short trip out to the rocks on inflatable boat, we arrived at our destination for descent. The dive itself wasn't too deep, as much of the marine life could be found at 40ft. For the dive, it was Peggy and I, two employees and the dive master. Once we got our buoyancy under control along the bottom, we started exploring. After a few minutes, we came upon an extremely large and extremely pregnant nurse shark. Turns out she also had three of her male friends nearby. These sharks were the size of NFL linebackers, just massive. The dive master and his two buddies got real close to the bottom and within (soon to be severed) arms distance of the sharks. Peggy and I, because of our inability to properly hover that close to the bottom, let the current take us at least a few lengths away from the action. The shark eventually got bored of us, deciding that we weren't worth his time or appetite and swam in between us and off into the depths. The rest of the dive was pretty average due to the lack of turtles, who may have been smarter than us in avoidance of the sharks.

As we surfaced and got back onto the boat, the driver said he saw humpbacks a few hundred meters off the back of the boat. We scooped everyone aboard and looked to investigate. After waving their fins a few times, the whales descended for several minutes, leaving us in anticipation. Would the calf and its mother return? Then, one after the other, the massive beasts did a full body breach, coming crashing down in a splash of sea spray.T'was a magnificent sight to behold.


Surfing at the local break later that day, we had a dolphin encounter. There were about a dozen surfers out, all catching some pretty mellow waves. A few dolphins came swimming by to say hello and started to catch the same waves. You'd see a surfer and a dolphin both trying to catch the same peak, with the dolphin usually winning. Peggy furiously paddled out beyond the break to get a better glimpse. We were a few lengths of a surfboard away from each other when a dolphin crested in between us, momentarily making eye contact with me.

When we returned or surfboards, the lady at the shop said that she'd been bitten by a dolphin at one point when trying to drop in on one's wave. I'm not sure if this was true or not, but an incident like that would have scarred Peggy (emotionally as well as physically) for life given the level of euphoria at the time.

posted by ncawthon at 10:26 AM