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Visited: very late dry season
Recommendation: This patch of coastline is beautiful and home to a lot of birds on the shore and in the bush. Check before you visit as conflict between the council and residents of the campsite have resulted in services being withdrawn.
This attractive and expansive campsite is just north of Carnarvon and right on the sea front. Please note that as of November 2024, the area is not being supported by the council anymore. There's some argument with residents in the shacks on the campsite and the result is that the facilities are being closed. I understand that people are still able to use it as a campsite and it's definitely worth coming. The blowholes and the coastline are absolutely stunning and it was really lovely to be there.
I missed the whale season but apparently it's a great place to see Humpback Whales as they pass through on migration to their breeding grounds in the north. But as ever, I was mainly here for the birds. At the blowholes themselves, there was not a lot going on, just some gulls. I did pick up some more species flying around as I sat. A very noisy whimbrel flew past and looking through my scope, I could see an osprey in the distance and a couple of other waders on the rocks. So when I'd finished at the blowholes, I went to the lookout just to the south. From there, you can see a little island just off Quobba Point. This is listed in eBird and for good reason. There was a huge amount of activity with hundreds of terns sitting on the beach, grooming and roosting.
Australasian Osprey (Pandion haliaetus cristatus)
Every now and again, they'd all take off, circle and then settle back down. It was really difficult to identify them as they were just a bit far away. But I did, I think, get up to seven species of tern on that beach. Unfortunately, they didn't venture anywhere near to the main beach and it wasn't possible for me to get out to the island. I didn't really want to disturb them anyway. So a long distance view was pretty much what I had to be happy with.
There seemed to be an awful lot of one particular type of tern and I initially thought that they were Whiskered Tern. They were not in breeding plumage, which always makes things difficult. These birds had more of a strong black bar on the wings so I thought that there was potentially some Common Terns in there too. Turns out they were all commons. I've never seen Common Terns in that kind of number.
Lesser Crested, Common and Greater Crested Terns
Further south from that lookout, is the campsite itself. It's got the shacks and the amenities at the northern end. And then as you drive south, there's a couple of kilometres of gravel road parallel to the beach. And every now and again, there are places that you can pull up and camp. I went as far as I could down the track and set up camp. There wasn't an immediate amount of activity but I did see some welcome swallows around the more inhabited areas.
But again, as I sat and just waited quietly, I started to hear the Rufous Fieldwren. It appeared to me that they were all throughout this area as I saw quite a number of them. The Singing Honeyeater was clacking away as normal and I did spot a rather sleep young Pied Honeyeater, but that was pretty much it as far as the animals went around the campsite.
Pied Honeyeater (Certhionyx variegatus)
Rufous Fieldwren (Calamanthus campestris)
Singing Honeyeater (Lichenostomus virescens)
After dark, I went down to the beach and it was alive with dozens of large crabs everywhere. They were the ghost crabs that I've seen elsewhere on this stretch of coast. I thoroughly enjoyed photographing them again especially when they raised their big claw at me.
Golden Ghost Crab (Ocypode convexa)
Trying to identify the terns so far away was where my Nikon P1000 camera came in really useful. I can do a 3000mm zoom, which is just phenomenal. But, I can also do another 3000mm digital zoom. Which means that I can reach animals that are very far away. The quality is severely reduced but it is so useful for identification purposes, which is what I needed here. It enabled me to find this White-winged Black Tern on the island with a full 6000mm zoom.
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