Phillip Island

About a week ago, I had a week long field course for Marine Wildlife at Phillip Island. Phillip Island is located just south of Port Phillip Bay and is about 2 hours away from Melbourne. There were about 60 students in this class and we stayed at a YMCA camp. I had a great time. The camp was located just next to the beach so we had the chance to hang out down there for a while. Amy and I braved climbing some rocks right to the edge to have our photo taken. We almost got taken out by a wave! The scenery was lovely. The other UWW girls and I shared a bunk house with some Burwood campus students and we made a few new friends. The camp was nice, except that they promised that we would never go hungry. They lied. I think that they are used to catering for 9 year olds and not college students. During the course of the week we performed 4 practicals. The first one was just looking at otoliths (ear bones of fish) to identify the species and how big they are. The second practical we did was to sift through Australian Fur Seal droppings and pick out otoliths and squid beaks. That interesting. It would have been better if it hadn't been so windy. But at least my group did it on a clear day, some other groups had to do it in the rain! The third practical involved observing silver gull behavior for 2 hours, not the most exciting exercise. The fourth practical involved looking at seal and penguin dive profiles on computers. The information was from tracking devices and recorded depth, time, temperature, light levels and other things. My group members and I have been working on writing a report for all of this. We also had to give a 10 minute oral presentation on a predetermined topic during the evenings of this field course. Amy and I were partners, but only one of us was allowed to give the presentation. I gave the presentation, and Amy cooked me dinner. Beef stew, yum. Anyway, we did really well and the Professor was really impressed. Because we had to listen to 30 presentations over the span of 3 nights it got really long. The second night (the night I gave my presentation) the professor and some of his PhD students were having a bit to much to drink during the presentations. It got a little crazy, especially when the person grading us had about a half of a bottle of scotch and pretty much fell out of his chair at the end. Understandably, a bunch of the students are not happy. Apparently, I was able to hold his attention and he was really impressed with my presentation.


Anyway, my all time favorite part was the visit to the Australian Fur Seal colony. We took a boat out there and got really close. The year old pups were very curious and swam right next to the boat. They were so cute!! I have tons of pictures, and this post has just a few. I absolutely loved it! The bulls were huge and loud. The seals will stick their flippers up out of the water to help cool down and it looks a little silly. We were out there for about a half an hour. That night, we also drove to a beach to see the Mutton birds (shearwaters). They come in by the thousands at night to their nests. It was too dark for me to take pictures, but I might get some from other people later. They are really awkward when they walk on land, and sometimes they crash into you if they don't see you! On our last night at Phillip Island, we went to the Little Penguin parade. The Little Penguin is the smallest penguin in the world, and has an ink blue back. They were so cute. They come in every night from the sea to their burrows. The place we went had boardwalks and such for the people, and the penguins just walked underneath. They didn't seem to be bothered by us. There were so many! I don't have any pictures right now because the flash bothers the penguins, so I didn't take any pictures. Amy was trying to take a picture and her flash accidentally went off. She felt really bad, but the picture turned out well. I'll put that up when I get it from her. The Little Penguin parade at Phillip Island is Australia's second largest tourist attraction behind the Great Barrier Reef. I highly recommend it to anyone that is visiting Victoria, Aus.

That night, in the bunk house, we stayed up late and had a good time. I thought I would post a few pictures of me and Amy with our funny faces. We had a blast, although were were pretty tired by the end. :)

I miss you all and hope everyone is doing well.