Shearwaters Apartments

Over recent posts here I have written about our recent short holiday at the Brighton Caravan Park in the southern parts of Adelaide, South Australia. While we were staying there for an extended weekend, I managed to squeeze in some birding along the coast there. On the Sunday afternoon, many of our friends who were also staying in the same park went for a walk. My wife had a little snooze in the van so I decided to take my camera and try to get some bird photos along the beach. You can see some of those photos in recent posts.

Now for something different

As I was walking back along the foreshore I came across some magnificent housing. In fact, most of the housing along this part of the coast is of a very high quality and very modern and probably with price-tags to match. The views from many of the homes and apartments along this coast are truly magnificent, plus one has the safe beach as an added bonus. One apartment building caught my attention in particular – that shown in the photo above. It had a ‘For Sale’ sign out the front but it was the name “Shearwaters” which caught my attention.

Shearwaters are seabirds and there are about 30 species of this family. Some of them are present in Australian waters and on occasion some can be seen along this stretch of coast. In fact, Australia’s most abundant seabird is the Short-tailed Shearwater which is also called a ‘Muttonbird‘ because in the early days it was caught in huge numbers as a meat bird (among other uses).

Various species of Shearwaters are seen occasionally in South Australian waters, but I can’t ever recall seeing any here. I do recall seeing the Short-tailed Shearwater in Victoria some years ago. While they aren’t seen here in large numbers, those in the Bass Strait between Victoria and Tasmania can number in the many millions and are an impressive sight when they all fly off in their migration to the northern hemisphere.

Near Marino Rocks near Adelaide