Diary day 7 - Foxy oystercatchers!

Our birds had to apply the skills they unfortunately obtained last year during the night.

I was doing my check of the traps this morning and found some fox tracks leading in under the fence line straight towards the nest. Your heart jumps up into your throat until you realise, it's ok, the bird is still sitting on the nest.

Quite often you see fox prints and deer prints mixed together in the sand. Last night the fox took a detour, presumably because it saw the movement of the birds. The birds did exactly what they are supposed to do, leaving the nest to lead the fox away and it worked so well.

The fox got to around 6 metres from the nest before it followed along (or was perhaps attacked from above by one adding to the encouragement). Once I'd confirmed the eggs were ok I was out of there so wasn't able to follow the tracks back along to see if there was a little battle in addition to a confused chase along.

This is a very challenging weekend for our nesting birds.

We have a full moon. Hoping this doesn't bring out the crazies that howl at the moon while cutting through rope lines and knocking over poles, thus really disturbing the birds. We also have the monthly big tides 10pm and 11pm which could see fishermen switching from fishing off the beach to creek side hoping to catch the fish going to or from the Basin. The fence line on creek side has been set-up so it should be well and truly in the water at these big tides, meaning no beach to stand on outside the fence. Just need to trust the fence lines will be respected and they don't go inside to find a dry edge (they'll be right on top of the nest should this happen).