Bright morning on the beach

The Safari had another group of eager explorers on the beach today. The first thing we did was to tell them of the six Bottle Nosed Dolphins we heard about not too far away to the north last night - well that got the youngsters excited and ready to rumble. Conditions at sea were absolutely bob on for cetacean spotting but we had our eyes down on the sand.

Before long a shout went up - "over here; look what we've found!" What was it? we wondered...certainly wasn't expecting a shark! A very small Tope, sadly a victim of the fishermen. News just in from Western Australia is that another swimmer has been bumped off her surfboard by a 4m Great White - just a little larger than our tiddler then. Thankfully she was uninjured, unlike the guy last week, and was back on her board the following day - now  that's what we call nerves of stainless steel!

Whilst looking at some of the more usual life in the trays a pale brown thing appeared out of a shell and started swimming around very quickly. Almost impossible to get a pic of it but this one is good enough to ID it as Idotea balthica. Not seen one since last summer...

But then another was found. At first we thought it might have been a different species but both show the three prongs on the tail, or more accurately from marLIN "The pleotelson in adults is characteristic, with approximately straight sides, a dorsal keel, and a posterior edge bearing three processes, of which the middle one is the longest".

 This little chap also put in appearance. The same as one we still haven't had identified from last week. We think it could be Sphaeroma serratum...but we could easily be miles out!

Almost at the end of our session one small group  had wandered almost out of bounds when they found this jellyfish. Although it lacks the usually very obvious rays our marine biologist friend, DB, thinks it's a Compass Jellyfish.

Back on terra firma a small number of Goldfinches were again feeding on the Spear Thistle seeds in the wild flower garden. many fewer than the other day and no sign of our green ringed individual. A female Common Blue butterfly was seen briefly here too before it hit the boost button and flew over the roof to the front garden and all the Bird's Foot Trefoil there.

Where to next? More settled weather should give an ideal cetacean spotting sea again tomorrow, providing there's no fog or sea mist.

In the  meantime let us know who's sporting all the teeth in your outback