Rob and I were staying in an old cottage at EagleHawk Neck, Tasmania, just along the beach from the Tesselated Pavement (see pic). This morning as we enjoyed brekkie by the huge window looking out to sea (the Tasman Sea, to the east of us which was strange to us from the west coast), I saw a big bird fly towards the coast. It got bigger and bigger. I pointed it out to Rob.

“It’s a sea eagle!” Rob’s camera was out in a flash and we flew out of the door to watch as it elegantly flew over the beach and the trees behind us, and on across the isthmus (the Neck).

That evening, plovers flew onto the grass of our back yard, calling their piercing calls to each other as they landed. Rob remembered that Paul Scaife (his NZ mountain guide) had thought they were paradise ducks when he’d heard them in the NZ mountain valleys…a nice memory of Paul who is sadly no longer with us.