Coffs Harbour–6 April 2011

One rainy day we headed into Coffs Harbour.  Coffs is the largest rural town in the vicinity and also a popular tourist city in season.  Most of the towns around here primarily serviced  the timber industry and are now agrarian.

We visited the harbor and then went for a walk on Muttonbird Island.  Mutton birds here are Wedge Tailed Shearwaters and they use various isolated places or islands on the coast to breed.  The Shearwaters on this Island have been under threat from various predators as the breakwater has joined  the Island to the mainland thus allowing  foot traffic onto the Island.  Rats from the ships, cats, dogs and people all take their toll on the nesting Shearwaters as the burrows are flimsy and will collapse if you walk on them and rats and dogs steal the eggs and eat the nestlings.  The name Muttonbird is self explanatory and they probably fed many a hungry settler.

Both parents share the care of the chicks.  We weren't there late enough in the day, but if you wait till dusk the sight of the birds returning to their nests to feed their chick and mate is a marvelous sight. We have seen it at other nesting sites in Australia.

We had a rather wet walk along the Island to the lookout over the Solitary Islands Marine Park.  Then dripping wet we did our shopping and dried out in the car on the way home to the van.