Griffith Island is home to a large colony of shearwaters (otherwise known as muttonbirds), which migrate here each year to breed and raise their young. During daylight the parents take off to sea to catch the day’s food and at night, when it’s almost completely dark, they return to the colony in their thousands, to feed their chicks, which reside in nests within burrows along the ground.
This is a real spectacle – just as it gets dark, you start to wonder if these birds will ever arrive, then you spot a couple in the distance. Before you have a chance to get excited, flocks of muttonbirds swarm the skies – they number in their thousands – and in silence, circle the air a few times before swooping into their burrows.
MOVIE:
so glad you finally got to see these amazing, only visible on dark, gorgeous Mutton Birds....and yes, the swarm is overwhelming, like locusts, and then the PLOP, is hilarious when they crash to the ground madly searching for their own burrow......did you see any go down a burrow only to come back out because they'd gone down the wrong one??....very funny...definate must for our kids next time...
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