We drive east along Kanidal Beach while surveying for birds, with such a strong wind blowing we find many are hiding amongst the beached seaweed and seagrass. It looks like the recent southeast winds have been good for beach construction with much of the seagrass on the upper part of the beach now buried and the beach is wide and clean. We explore further along the beach finding a sculptured limestone coastline that extends beyond the shoreline as a rocky shelf. Seagrass wracks are still high at the western end of the beach.

We look at the old underground water tank at Cocklebiddy, which is still standing and receiving runoff. Despite there being many caves and many with water, drinking water is very hard to find and capturing every possible bit of rain and runoff is a priority. We are excited that the WA museum identified the tadpoles we found in a rock hole on the Blue Bush country as Wheatbelt Frog, Neobatrachus kunapalari

The grasslands along the Pannikin Plains are now golden brown and providing plenty of seed for quails and pigeons. We continue to find all kinds of plants in flower and fruit, nitre bush is abundant and its red fruit is a perfect colour for the festive season. Plants that flowered after the October rain are flowering again after the November rain Glischrocaryon flavescens is an example of this.

We are finding it easier to locate caves and dolines, the changes in the landscape, limestone outcrops and welcome swallows who seem to inhabit cave entrances.

We set up some cameras on the bird baths and capture the day to day activity around them, it’s interesting to see who visits.

We visit Twilight Cove again, it’s a beautiful coastal site one cannot help themselves but take more photos. We find a turtle carcass, likely the casualty of being caught in the cold waters of the Southern Ocean. We found some seagrass species washed up on the beach, now we just need to identify them. Also noted was the extensive algal blooms from Kanidal Beach to Wader Beach, we suspect due to upwelling. During the austral autumn/winter, the Leeuwin Current is strongest and supresses upwelling of cold water and nutrients for much of the south-west and southern coastlines. In summer, when the Leeuwin Current flow is reduced due to more persistent southerly and south westerly winds, the Flinders Current allows periodic upwelling along parts of the southern coastline (Middleton and Cirano 2002; Middleton and Platov 2003). For more information goto here.