“What the … ?”

Frank and I were doing our usual walk along the beach at low tide the other day when we came across something we had never seen before, and we were curious to find out what it was and so we asked one of the marine experts at work. Do you know what these are?

Well for other land-lubbers like us they are Goose Barnacles ( Genus Lepas ) – a common group of animals that attach to drifting objects from pieces of wood to buoys etc. They are filter feeders and have , like all barnacles, hairy cirri or feet that stick out of the opening in the shell to trap particles in the water. 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_barnacle

Wikipedia says you can eat them and that they are an expensive delicacy called percebes. The same marine expert found this and suggested that we might like to try for ourselves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxIsdWAm9T  He said that when you remember that they are crustaceans they probably taste pretty reasonable – personally after looking at them and watching the video we decided to pass.

We often see these small jellyfish, about the size of a 5-10c coin. They’re called Velella velella or “by the wind sailor”  that often get washed onto on beaches in large numbers. The small “sail” means these animals are dispersed across the water surface by the wind.  See also  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella

Back on land we have been having issues with our veggie garden, which Frank constructed late last year as I was craving fresh basil and tomatoes – pesto on toast yum.

Anyway more and more holes were appearing and more and more veggies were showing signs of being nibbled, and to cut a long story short we relocated 9 bush rats before things improved slightly, as the Bower birds appear to do slightly less damage. Then we caught a feral cat – not a happy cat, now a deceased cat. Then we had yet another surprise visitor who discovered bush rat number 11 I think it was in the closed cage and spent 2 days in the veggie garden optimistically looking for one that was more accessible.

This is the first White Goshawk I’ve ever seen and she was beautiful, the pictures don’t really do her justice although Frank got some good photos. She is about the size of a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo.