bird and brother: Spongies and other sea things ~ Shark Bay

There's a few reasons why Shark Bay has earned it's place on the World Heritage list, and we got to check a few of them out on our visit. First, it's beautiful. Red cliffs and white beaches slip into the bluest water you could dream of. At one point as we drove in, I was struggling to work out where the horizon was - sea and sky just blend into each other. Second is the seagrass. Shark Bay is huge and shallow, and holds the biggest seagrass meadows in the world. The seagrass does a couple of things worth a mention - it supports the biggest population of dugongs in the world (about 13000) and it forms these huge baffles that partially block off the inner parts of the bay from the sea, and they have become extra salty, with double the salt content of seawater. Which brings us to three - stromatolites. These are aggregations of primitive bacteria that form rock-like clusters and towers. Before plants and animals, these things ruled the world. The super salty parts of Shark Bay keep out the creatures that would munch on them and have allowed stromatolites to thrive like nowhere else, giving us a window into life on earth way before us. Four - really clever dolphins. The different groups of bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay have worked out a range of innovative feeding behaviours that they teach to their children and others in their group. Some of them can aquaplane through water that's too shallow for them to swim, others break off sponges to stick on their beaks so they don't get hurt foraging on the seabed. And then there's Project Eden. There's a massive narrow-based peninsula that sticks out into the middle of Shark Bay that is used for this great conservation project. They have blocked off the base of the peninsula with a predator-proof fence and wiped out most of the population of feral predators on the peninsula, and are reintroducing species that were once widespread but now extinct (or nearly extinct) on mainland Australia, things like bilbies, woylies, and banded hare-wallabies. So all in all, a pretty cool place.

On our way in to Shark Bay we stopped at Hamelin Pool to check out some stromatolites. They were great to see and the pool was far more beautiful than we expected, but it was hot and glary and we got out of there pretty quick rather than risk another sunburn. Next day we drove across the peninsula from Denham to Monkey Mia. First up we went to the dolphin feeding. This has been going on for years and they're now really careful how they handle it - only a few particular dolphins are fed and they're only fed a limited amount of fish each day, so they don't get distracted from looking after their babies or teaching them how to hunt. It's the best chance anywhere for getting a close up look at some wild dolphins and it's a good bit of fun. Next we had coffee at the resort, which was made extra special by all the emus wandering around the grounds. Mid-morning we got onto the Aristocrat 2 for a wildlife tour of the area. Little bird's first time on a boat! It turned out to be great. Mostly we took turns hanging out with her in the cabin while the other one was out on the deck watching the sea. We got a tour of a pearl farm out on the water with some schools of snapper hanging around, and saw lots of birds, turtles, dolphins, and, as we came back in to shore, some great views of the bay's namesake - tiger sharks. At one point the call went up that there were "spongies" ahead and we actually saw some of the sponge dolphins! We didn't get a good view of the sponges on their beaks, but it was still pretty cool. No dugongs though, they'll have to wait till next time. We had lunch back at the resort, then one last highlight for me before we headed back to Denham was my first spotting of a new type of wren. Thick-billed grasswrens are one species that has benefited from the predator wipeouts in the area, and two of them came to hang out with me as I loaded up the car. They even posed for photos! A great day with our little bird, who also managed to get in the car a couple of times without any major tears - things just might be turning around....