Some years ago when we were having a holiday up north, we stayed for a few days in Cairns.
This gave me the opportunity to go on a day trip to a well known bird rookery on Michaelmas Cay. It was only a small area of sand out in the ocean but almost completely covered by Sooty Terns.
The day was bright and clear with a smooth trip out in the boat. I’m not a great sailor but this trip was fine for me. At the island, when we went ashore, we were given a packet of food for our lunch and asked not to go into the middle of the sitting birds.
This was a very sensible request as some of the nests were so close together, that someone could easily trod on some of the eggs.
Actually our trip was probably too early in the season as none of the nests had babies yet. To have the parent birds with their babies would have been another special feature.
However it was no trouble keeping outside the rookery as the close birds were all great.
I just sat in the sand, took some photos, then moved on and did the same at a number of different nests as I walked around the Cay.
During the early afternoon, three Brown Boobys flew over and began circling above.
This was an opportunity to take some flight shots of them.
One by one, they landed at the far end from where we were. However, they only stayed a short time before they took off and headed out to sea.
We left mid-afternoon so that we would able to arrive back in daylight.
A light afternoon tea on the way back, was great to finish the day.
