Oystercatcher Diary - 2015 Day 2.3

We need movement at all stations

for the word to pass around

that our bird, with no regret, has one more egg

Great news, as it means they won't be having that long mid morning nesting break to make any more eggs. They'll concentrate more fully on what they already have.

Jo and I did more patch work on the fence as our extra posts did not arrive today as planned but we now at least have perimeter lines all the way around. Once we get our extra posts it means we can string a double rope line all the way around so we have something to hang our No Entry signs from.

We currently just have the 5 council Beware signs up on each of the corners (plus an extra middle one on the beach side) so hoping we don't have a lot of people from the camp ground trampling over the basin area on the weekend wandering the lines wondering what they are about. I'm told the camp is full on Saturday night, hoping our one sign in each of the facilities tells them enough to keep them away from the lines. I may need to consider printing some more so they can be put up on the back of every shower stall and toilet door.

I will be getting a No Dogs sign printed at Civic Copying to put at the Bonnie Vale end of the beach. I would have thought that end could look after itself as you need to go through the Royal to get to there, but that appears to be no impediment. It seems because our beach is a little more remote with generally less people they think it is the better choice to run dogs on and get away with it. Problem being, our little remote beach is the one with the migratory birds and beach nesters.

Longer term it needs to be considered to have volunteers on the beach more often that can talk about our beach nesters and migratory birds and provide the dog owners with a BirdLife Australia pamphlet to take away. The pamphlet should show the beaches that can have dogs run on them and why our Shire beach is so unique with its bird life that it needs remain dog free.

The birds have been chased off every other beach (excluding Towra Nature Reserve island) this is their last remaining home.

If the dog owners end up with a talk and a pamphlet every time they take their dog on the beach, they may eventually feel the need to move to the dog friendly beaches just to get some peace. For our non-residents a good long term solution that can provide a positive outcome. For our residents, trickier, as we don't want a neighbour against neighbour war. I'm told from other nesting sites it is about getting the locals on side one by one and they eventually can get all but the most gung ho on side. Apparently this is how it eventually worked with the scooping of poop.

The weather has been kind to us so far during our first week of nesting, just like the first week on their first try. I'm hoping the expected heavy rain weather due Tuesday and Wednesday, with our monthly large tides, doesn't also have large swells to go with it. One challenge at a time.