There has been strong easterly airflow for several days now, and it is expected to go on until at least the middle of next week. My thoughts had been turning to seabirds, and our outstanding good fortune that the Sunshine Coast pelagic is coming up on Sunday 9th December. Or at least it was coming up on 9th December, until the very thing that would have made it a zinger of a trip – the wind – caused the captain to cancel. The horror!!!!

Greg Roberts was straight on the case, and managed to negotiate moving the trip to Wednesday 12th December, hopefully still within the period of easterly winds. I was initially thinking of trying to get to Moreton Island for a seawatch on Sunday, but with the pelagic rescheduled so close, it would be tricky to negotiate the time away from home.

Still, as I peered outside this afternoon after a long session working on the laptop, and saw the blustery winds still blowing, and showers scudding through, I jumped up and decided to head to Shorncliffe Pier to see if any seabirds had entered Moreton Bay by way of shelter. I dashed up the M1, and arrived at the pier about 3.30, resolving to put in half an hour of “seawatching” (baywatching perhaps?)

Straight away I had a Little Tern and I thought it was going to be a mega session with Sooty Terns and Lesser Frigatebirds. But as usual my overactive imagination was leading me astray. There were no seabirds in the Bay. Sulking, I retreated home. I’m planning to give Archerfield another shot in the morning.

But then I got to speak at the opening of Deb Mostert’s exhibition Australien Future at Redland Art Gallery this evening. A fine collection of work highlighting the parallels between migrations of people and shorebirds. Well worth a visit if you are in Cleveland sometime between now and 20th January 2019.

With no year ticks today, my year list remained stuck on 303 species. I spent 35 minutes birding, walked 0 km and drove 64.0 km. My chronological year list is here.