Still wet and windy

The Safari's first proper day's holiday didn't start too well with a very much shortened Patch 1 visit, only got to the Golden Triangle where a Song Thrush was struggling to make itself heard over the noise of the wind.

Later in the morning with little chance of a more distant safari and some errands to run we picked the scope up and set off for the coast after the shops. A short scan of a wind and rain lashed sea gave us only a couple of Sandwich Terns.

Frank was looking bored and lying uncomfortably in a puddle so we decided to give him a walk down the beach. A shrewd move as we soon came upon several Moon Jellies. Looking harder and walking further we gave up counting after the 200 mark although towards the end the frequency with which we were finding them was dropping. Most were small, about 3 inches diameter (75mm) but the biggest were getting on for about a foot (30cm), of those that weren't covered in a film of blown sand many had mauve rings (the gonads) but from their large size and typical shape of the gonads Mauve Stinger can be ruled out.

A Meadow Pipit was spotted briefly along the dune edge as it ended its song flight with a parachuting trill.

With the weather out to sea looking a little brighter we went back to the wall for another scan and were able to double our count of Sandwich Terns to four...nothing else though. Yet another rain squall built up and drove inshore so it was time to skidaddle back to Base Canp.

Where to next? Maybe an update later...

In the meanime let us know how the weather's misbehaving in your outback