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Above: Royal Spoonbills feeding. Right: Spoonbills in flight. |
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Brisbanites are incredibly lucky to have such a playground as Moreton Bay in which to spend the weekend. The Bay is a wetland site of international importance and a vital link in the migration of birds to and from the Northern Hemisphere. Each year more than 50,000 wading birds visit its rich feeding grounds to gain strength and energy reserves to sustain their long migrations to China, Siberia or Alaska to breed.
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After visiting Mt Willes and the Sandhills, surely there couldn’t be anything else in Moreton Bay as good as that? Well, the ochre cliffs behind the fabulous beach at Horseshoe Bay on Peel Island are hard to beat too…so that’s where we headed next. |
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The flora and fauna of Northern and Southern Australia overlap at Moreton Bay, resulting in remarkable biological diversity. The Bay has more than 715 species of fish and more than 3000 species of free-living marine invertebrates (does that mean they play up on a regular basis?). All six Australian turtle species have also been recorded in the Bay. If you want to know more, there is no better book than “Wild Guide to Moreton Bay”, published by the Queensland Museum, from which this information has been taken. |
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Above: Bernd sailing to Peel Island. Left: Horseshoe Bay, Peel Island. |
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Right: mangroves and ochre cliffs, Peel Island. Below: ochre cliffs detail. |
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MORETON BAY...continued |
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