Exploring Penguin Island, Western Australia

Penguin Island is a nature reserve about 500m off the coast of Rockingham and home of the little blue penguin.

On Sunday May 7 2017 my son and I decided to go and explore Penguin Island. Arriving at the departure point I immediately spotted a wattle as well as a sign saying Beware of Snakes - a reminder that even though there are dunes and vegetation to not go wandering off the paths as I usually do and keep an eye out for snakes!

Penguin Island is connected by a sand bar that is shallow enough to walk. However as we do not know the currents here we took the 5 minute boat trip boat across. We could easily see the bottom of sand bar, which also had alot of eel grass - not the species that grows at home though. I also saw eckolonia ratiata washed up and flocks of pied shags (Phalacrocorax varius) flying around but too swift to get good photos :(

From the jetty we went to the Discovery centre and passed 100's of seagulls that were hanging around in the vegetation beside the boardwalk and totally ignoring humans. Their bills have a black tip and when I go the photos up here I found out that these are not the red billed gulls of home, but the Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae).

Arriving at the discovery centre we spent alot of time there while I photograhed the little blue penguins that live at the centre. The wild population are out at sea during the day so this was the best opportunity to get photos of these little birds.

Next we were off to the beaches and coastline. Tides are not really a factor here as there is only about 200mm between high and low so the coastline can be explored anytime and the west side of the island is the only open sea of the Indian Ocean and the only place on the island where there was at least some surf pounding. I was fortuate enough to be shouted a 3mm body suit, dive socks and boots so wading around was not a problem LOL We spend about 5 hours exploring rocks all around the island looking for marine life and again it was reinforced to me how lucky I am that my tribal area has marine life everywhere, as here there was not much, with home being the enchmark for me. An intersting find was the Little Blue Periwinkle (Nodilittorina unifasciata) similar to out blue banded periwinkle, but bigger. Also found a few limpets, a couple of chitons and a jellyfish as well as the Purple Rock Crab (Leptograpsus variegatus which lurks around home.

Birds here include the Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys), and the Great Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii) and I could tell it was a tern but had to wait until I was home to find the species. The tricky bird was the Australasian Darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae) which from a distance looked like a black shag, but when I got those photos loaded that is when I found out what it was.

The signs around here explaining about the plants and wildlife are general helpful but specifically useless. For example a sign said the limestone areas are vegetated by the berry saltbush and the wild grape, otherwise known as the mitre bush but I can not find the real name for the wild grape or the mitre bush which is what I photographed so resorted to "plants" again LOL

Below is a selection of what I found.

Posted on 16 de maio de 2017, 02:49 AM by tangatawhenua