An unforgettable, overwhelming and pungent day spent on Michaelmas Cay during a tour of wildlife-rich Queensland
theguardian.com, Thursday 6 November 2014 02.07 GMT
Sun, sea, sand and smell. Maybe that’s not the way they’d say it in the tourist brochures, but it’s the perfect description of Michaelmas Cay.
No other wildlife spectacle is quite such an assault on the senses as a seabird colony. With up to 20,000 noisy, active, and pretty smelly birds on a small, sandy island, a visit to Michaelmas Cay is a must for any serious birder touring north Queensland.
I leave on the first boat to land on the cay each morning to get uninterrupted views of the birds before the other tourist boats land there. Skipper Carl tells me the sea has been choppy for the past week or so, but this is a perfect morning: fine, clear and calm, as we set out from Cairns on the 90-minute crossing.
Once there, First mate Vinny, an amiable Brazilian, gets me straight into the inflatable rib and deposits me on the beach, where I stand and stare in sheer awe at the birds around me. I’ve been to many seabird colonies before, and seen puffins on Shetland and penguins in Antarctica, but in 50 years of birding this is my first visit to a tropical one – and I’m not quite prepared for just how overwhelming the experience proves to be.
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