Nature’s megafeast
We had heard of mega feasting on the coast but had never seen it. Stories of a thousand dolphins in a feeding frenzy off Wye about 15 years ago. We thought it might be exaggerated, but on 2 September, we changed our mind.
We were driving past Wongarra on Father’s Day, and noticed an unusually large number of Gannets offshore and stopped for a better look. There were about 50 birds circling and diving about a kilometre from the Great Ocean Road. Just like this pic.
The circling Gannets
The horizon opened up.
There were more clusters of feeding birds to the left. More to the right, a long way out. This pic doesn’t do them justice.
Birds feeding 1 km out to sea
Dolphins attack too
In each group of feasting birds, a pod of three or so Dolphins were in there too, churning and feeding at their leisure.
We counted over six separate clusters of birds and Dolphins over 3 Km off Wongarra.
500 Gannets
We estimate about 500 Gannets were in the frenzy along the 3 km event.
So mega feeding does happen. You never know what displays nature will put on when you least expect it on the Great Ocean Road!