The good ship Vulcan Spirit arrived at Port Bundaberg at 2330hrs on 19 June after a two and a half day, 440 nautical mile, passage from Chesterfield – record quick time in exciting weather conditions. First impressions of this part of vast Queensland (mainland Australia is nearly the size of the continental USA) is that it is really really flat, that it’s chock full of birds (we’ve probably seen as many species here in a week as we saw in NZ in a year), and that it’s cold cold cold (much of southern Queensland was basking in an overnight temperature of –1C, colder than Hobart 1500 miles to the south).

The marina here at the mouth of the Burnett River is full of birds in the morning, the posse seen here cruising past the dredger, VS just visible in the background:

 

 

As you can see, many of them are pelicans which we haven’t seen since the Caribbean (but these are Australian pelicans Pelecanus conspicillatus, not the American type). Surprisingly, although clearly very closely related these birds do not fish by dive bombing, but rather by scooping while swimming on the surface:

 

 

Here is a pied cormorant Phalacrocorax varius swimming round the boat:

 

 

And here, an Australian darter Anhinga melanogaster, related to the cormorants, drying his wings on one of the pontoons:

 

 

All cormorant species do this, as you may have noticed. But have you ever wondered why, almost alone amongst waterbirds, they do so? The reason is that in order to aid their diving their feathers are only partially water-repellent – see how low in the water the pied cormorant above is floating. As a result they get wet while gulls, ducks & the rest do not; so they have to dry off in the air.