This is my last post from my holiday in sunny South Africa. The photos in this post come from my frequent early-morning walks along the beach at Melkbosstrand, about 40 minutes’ drive up the west coast from Cape Town.

Most of the seagulls on the beach were Cape Gulls. Here’s a group of them with Table Mountain as a backdrop:

Looking in the other direction along the beach on a clear day, the backdrop is Koeberg nuclear power station:

At first I thought I was seeing two different types of gulls, because the juveniles are large and have very different colouring from the adults. The adult is a neat black and white. The yellow beak ends with a distinctive red splotch:

The juveniles are a soft, mottled brown and cream:

Junior coming in to land:

An adult performing a similar manoeuvre:

A story of a crab: I spotted a crab upside-down on its back, with its legs embedded in the wet sand. It was quite large, the body about the size of the palm of my hand. I picked up a shell and used it to gently tap the crab. Instantly, the pincers swung round and tried to grab the shell. Ah, it’s alive! I used the shell to flip the crab over. It immediately dug itself into the sand with its back legs, until just the top of its shell was showing:

A little while later, this scene made me doubly glad that I’d rescued that particular crab. Another crab had become a seagull’s meal:

Cape Gulls in motion:

A moody, misty shot:

As a parting shot, seagull footprints on the sand:

My next post will be from back home in Australia!