Beautiful Big Tides and Birds

High Tide photo from Drone

Waking at Willie Creek:

Low tide at First morning light

Couldn't decide which one was better?

I love to lay in bed and romanticises  about a land before time when waking on a beach like this.  It’s easy to when the first sounds heard before opening my eyes are rolling waves, smooth and rhythmic.  Rolling, crushing, rolling, crushing.  Then comes the ancient call of the brolga’s .  Their deep chesty call that belongs in pre ice-age times, when dinosaurs roamed this land.  With eyes still closed my mind recalls one of the dinosaur’s ancestor, the crocodile, that was just recently spotted on our beach, and my mind race’s to distinguish which time I am actually in.  At this time of the morning, with the sun rays only just starting to break into the pastel coloured sky, it is easy to imagine living in pre historic times.  

Sun about to come up.

I roll my sleepy body out of bed so I can fully enjoy this peaceful setting.  As the kettle boils I take in my surrounding, happily knowing that I have many more mornings like this to come.  No rushing off to work or to clean the house.  No traffic jams, pollution or daily news updates bringing doom and gloom from all around the world.  As the sun gets higher, and the air temperature hotter, the only interference from my fantasy dream land will be vehicles on the beach, and helicopters over head.    Both of which are also fun to watch, and imagine what these other modem day people are doing with their lives. 

 The 4x4’s that come up the beach are mostly fisherman, so we enjoy interaction with them, or just to watch and learn from different techniques.  Often people are just sight seeing, so I assume they are on holiday, taking in the picturesque scenery, that I’m sure is world class here!  Same with the scenic flight helicopter that flies over head several times each day, holiday makes getting a birds eye view.  The only reminder of the working world we get is the continual fly over’s of Air Force and large Rig helicopters.

The high tides this cycle have been amazing.  Perhaps it’s simply because instead of fishing them (realised last month they were too hard with little results), we are setting back and enjoying them.  Taking time to photograph, swim or just sit and take it all in.

Here's a link to my first Drone flight over Willie Creek, so you too can enjoy the scenic flight from the comfort of your own home: Willie Creek from Drone on YouTube.  I have another one in the making, from the beautiful high tides lately, but had some program problems.

High tide in our lagoon midday 

During our down time from fishing we have been exploring and bird chasing.  After reading and then dreaming about Brolga’s I wanted to get some photos of them.  We are lucky here in the West where their numbers are higher, a sighting is not so uncommon.  Having heard their calls early the last few mornings I had a good idea where to head to find them…that and the fact that they like the wet lands ;)

First sighting of Brolga's

I scared them off, but it was so worth it!

They did a fly-by so Johnno could see them to.

We found ourselves up the creek, watching the not so shy crocodile.  Wondering if this could be the one that was recently out on the beach.
Croc blog for those who haven't heard already: heli rescued from croc attack

The birds were very aware of the croc's movements!

 I have hundred other bird photos of plenty of different species, but that is another full twitcher blog.  My next mission is to get in front of the bastard (bush turkey, but I like bustard better), I have a few good shots of him flying off when I’ve scared him out of the long grass.

I can hear the sea eagles calling, it’s time to get off line and back behind the long lens.

I found the mob!