Geelong Rakali’s mid-arvo snack
January 22, 2009 by BayKeeper
Filed under Wild Things
I spotted this rakali near Cunningham Pier, Geelong, mid-arvo in January, in an area with lots of people passing by. It headed offshore and dived among seaweed a couple of times, rocketing to the surface (as if playing). Third time lucky, it came up with a leatherjacket (of the fish variety!) about 3 quarters the body length of the rakali.
The winner of the dinner headed straight for shore and into a drain pipe before I could get in position for a better photo.
There are two young rakali running around the rocks at the end of the St Kilda Boardwalk. They are a delight to watch as they wait for their parents to come in with the odd snack but they have not been given anything quite as big as a large fish.
Last night the adult penguins were late coming in and the 6 week old chicks were waiting on the rocks for their dinner. It was very windy and they were trying to balance themselves with their flippers out but this caused them to have extra width and they were wobbling around like mechanical toys. Nonetheless they were still waiting and wobbling 30 minutes later.I hope they finally got a meal.
Thanks Zoe, for keeping us in touch with those wascally wakalis and other St Kilda wild things. Do you reckon those parent penguins went to ‘Big Day Out’ and missed the Night Rider bus? Naah! Not really their scene is it. They’re happy with the simple things in life, like clean water and being able feed their kids. Speaking of which, it’s a pretty tough gig being a St Kilda penguin chick, when ‘heavy metal’ is not so much your music of choice as something in the food chain! Keep us posted Zoe.
Have been spending many winter afternoons watching the Rakali swimming up and down Kananook Creek at Seaford. We call them our Creek otters as people don’t seem to like the name ‘water rat’. One young Rakali even had his dinner menu aimed fair and squarely at a young teal and chased it up the creek for quite a distance… no duck dinner for the Rakali though.
By the way we have had a few penguins off Seaford Beach over the last month… can only hear them calling on calm days and we haven’t had many of them. How’s everyone else’s beach going… ours at Seaford is going, going, gone nearly.
Thanks for sharing your observations Alison. I have to say, I’ve usually seen Rakali after dark, but they’re obviously happy to be out and about during daylight. Perhaps it depends on how hungry they are?
On the subject of beaches going: DON’T GET ME STARTED! From what I’ve seen at Mt Eliza, the higher tides resulting from channel deepening and the strong north, north-westerly, and westerly winds over the last couple of months have been quite destructive. It would be interesting to see the wind strength and direction data recorded since March of this year.
I saw a Rakali in the water just west of Cunningham Pier in Geelong yesterday around 11am.
It dived down and a few seconds later came up with a fish….such a graceful swimmer with the back feet paddling and the white tipped tail out behind…It wasn’t at all interested in our presence and calmly came out of the water with it’s catch and proceeded to climb the nearby rocks and then disappear amongst them….what a buzz for me…I had never seen one before.
Thanks for your report Dianne. It’s great to know the Geelong Rakali clan is doing well! They sure are cool dudes, unconcerned about people. Although, one night on St Kilda Pier, I did see one run away from a woman wearing a fur coat.