A fabulous sight and sound yesterday morning as a skein of five vulnerable Cape Barren Geese flew – happily honking – over The Cape in a westerly direction. Whilst there are plenty of these birds on Phillip Island, they are less common on other parts of the mainland and are more at home on islands in Bass Strait. I didn’t manage to have the camera with me yesterday, but here are a couple photos I took last week at the ‘Island’ so you are aware what they look like.

The autumnal weather seems to have slipped away this past week with a pick-up in the winds, some gloomy coastal mist, and the odd ocean squall. We are still waiting for the cold, icy blasts to hit off the Southern Ocean and Bass Strait …maybe they will come in August and into September. Does anyone else feel like the seasons are slipping back a little?

Along with the new creek line development, a project has been underway to design and manufacture microbat habitat boxes for placement in some of the tree stags. Led by the very inventive and creative Graeme McAlpine, several boxes have been built using timber recycled from Cape building sites (thanks to the Spano’s). Based on personal observations of microbat behaviour, the boxes have been designed for both warm and cool weather and include snuggly socks (thanks Jeannie H for the darning) for the bats to ‘hang-out’. It will be interesting to see how they work in coming years – the bats are about; we just need them to take up residence!

As is the pattern, our stunning weather was replaced by cool, overcast, and gloomy weather with more rain which has the countryside very wet and boggy, albeit green. Winter is a time for bunkering down, but outside in the wild, there is plenty of activity going on. Amongst the beautiful rainbows, there is evidence of mating and nest building. Despite no increase in the number of bird species observed, there are a few infrequent visitors about at the moment. Two big highlights for me were a pair of Peregrine Falcons hunting from the new stags and a large flock of at least a hundred Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos in the ‘Lone Pine’.

What stunning winter weather we have been having here at The Cape – calm, sunny days, coolish clear nights, interspersed with some good rainfall. The conditions have allowed the landscape team to really get a wriggle on in the Stage 3 Open Space project – the hard landscaping is just about complete in the creek-line and the walking tracks are starting to be cut out and laid.

A fantastic documentary worth watching on our ABC is ‘Australian Ocean Odyssey – A Journey Down the Eastern Australian Current’. Great information and filming of marine and bird life from the tropics to the Southern Ocean. The final episode is tonight at 8.30PM.

Coincidentally, there has been heaps of fantastic whale activity this week along the Bunurong coast after the first reports about four weeks ago. Tony O’Connell (TS) and Brendan Condon have been great updating us with sightings on Facebook (humpies on their northerly migration and killer whales – orcas!!) and Jen (Sunlight) nearly ran off the coast road when she saw a whale breach!! At Eagles Nest, we think there may have been a Southern Right (based on blow and behaviour) but cannot be ‘really confident’ of the sighting. No photos either sorry!!

There has been heaps of whale activity this week along the coast, from 2^nd Surf along to Eagles Nest. Tony O’Connell has been great updating us with sightings on Facebook (humpies and orcas!!) and Jen nearly ran off the coast road when she saw a whale breach!! At Eagles Nest, we think there may have been a Southern Right (based on blow and behaviour) but cannot be confident of the sighting. No photos either!!

I seemed to have been tied up around the house a bit this week but it hasn’t stopped me keeping an eye on things ‘natural’ around The Cape, particularly overlooking the open spaces of Stage 3 and beyond.

A see-sawing week at The Cape on the nature front. The highlight was humpback whale and albatross sightings – the low point was a vicious dog attack on our resident Kangaroo mob.

No wind, no rain, no cloud, beautiful sunsets …. stunning days of glorious weather highlighted all the beauty The Cape has to offer over the past few days. With Covid-19 restrictions eased just a little, it was great to see people out and about and some of our future residents taking the opportunity to see their new homesites and the latest developments. Hopefully, there is more ‘light around the corner’.