Stingray in Pinky Bay
This blog was meant to be about something quite different, but then we took our glasses of Dukes Cabernet Merlot and walked to the Bathurst Lighthouse. (I love a sunset over water….)
Over the last couple of days I’ve been watching the beautiful stingrays swimming along the beach. They look like black velvet as they glide through the shallows, the edges of their wings rolling to show their pale underbellies. Yesterday an old fisherman and his mate were catching herring off the rocks. He used the scraps from his filleting to teach several children how to hand feed the graceful animals. I was sorry I didn’t have a camera.
Tonight he was there again, but there were no small children to follow this marine Pied Piper. The five rays turned up, rolling in the shallows.
The gulls came to fight for scraps and the sun set into the long line of the India Ocean.
Gulls diving on the food
When, years ago I used to travel Cook Strait, NZ on the ferry, you could often hold a sandwich out, and the gulls would come right down and snatch a a bite from it!
Sandy, that pesky gull was such a prima donna! He kept asking for better pay and conditions, demanding I talk to his agent, insisting I sign a film contract with him…
But then he out did himself, so I forgive him.
Hey Helene, I can almost hear those gulls squawking. We saw the tiniest ray a couple of weeks ago when we were out in the boat. From wing tip to wing tip it was about three inches. Sooo cute! How’d you get that gull to pose right in front of the sun?
Yeah, I guess rays aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. I can remember one scaring the heck out of me in Currumbin Creek late in the afternoon when I fell off a windsurfer. I’ve never got back on a board so fast… Much to the amusement of my friends watching from the other bank…
Wow, that picture of the seagulls is gorgeous.
My first memories of stingrays are of being traumatised by them when accidentally catching some on a fishing trip on the NSW South Coast. I tend to steer clear these days!