Nature's Place

I discovered another place today, filled with the creatures of this bountiful Earth. It’s by the Brunswick River and it is called Brunswick River NR, naturally. It’s surrounded by water on three sides, the ocean on one and the river on two.

I only got to see one side properly, the one nearest the car park on the northern arm of the river. I went along an old track through some trees and bushes and as soon as I got to the sand flats, it was low tide, I noticed mass movement in light blue all along the ground from my feet out to the water thirty metres away.

There were hundreds of blue crabs and as soon as they saw me they were off. Away from me in all directions, mostly towards the water.

Beautiful little things. You have to wonder at the intelligent creativity of the Earth. Certainly no accidental or incidental evolution, they are mystery manifest. As fitting of a place in the whole as you or I.

When they got to the water they didn’t want to go in. Possibly too visible to the many fish that also live in these waters. Including Dolphin.

I played with them for a while, herding them this way and that to see what they would do and to get a better look at them, nothing exhausting.

One small group split from the herd and went out on a small sand bank and got caught at the waters edge. They turned their backs to the river and tip toed this way and that and finally, with a little help, made their way, huddled together, back to the mass.

It was an unusual sight, another of the little secrets of this naturefull place where I live. There were a couple of crows in the distance seemed to be eating their fill, as crows do, being the opportunists crows are.

But no mass feeding by the many other birds that also live hereabouts. The Heron and Cormorant, Tern and Gull. That was unusual too.

The Dolphin is a very hard creature to photograph but I got one, sort of, from a long way off.

The picture is really not good but illustrates the fact. I only got it by guessing where it would surface next.

And all of the time I was wrong, so I had to fix focus and shift fast. This one looks a bit like the Loch Ness monster; nobody ever got a picture of it either.

You can’t have everything.

There were a few more creatures here today and they were at relative ease with me there, though still wild.

The fact people go there frequently has something to do with that. I’ll come back to this place.

A peaceful place.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery