Mullens Saltmarsh

I went for a very slow and careful walk yesterday morning out to the Mullens creek roost site. My dog Misty dances all around me when she knows that she is going in the car with me. When I let her into the car she curls up on the floor until she feels the bumpy corrugated surface of the road over the last few hundred yards down to the bay. Then she is alert and excited again and can't wait to run off and explore all the smells where other dogs have walked. Yesterday morning was a bit different. She apparently didn't think I should be walking around. She walked close behind me and kept touching my sore knee with her nose. I don't know how she knows these things. Maybe she can smell or feel the heat in the knee? Anyway it was quite a while before she decided that I was walking so slowly she could go off and explore the shoreline and still keep a careful eye on me.
It was low tide so I didn't get close to any birds on the roost site. They tend to roost on the far side and the only way to get there is in the kayak.
This is a huge area of saltmarsh. None of the vegetation is more than a few inches high. It always looks dry and burnt-up – possibly because most of the plants are red colored and the ground is covered with a dark wrinkled crust of algae. Its only when you look very closely that you start to see seasonal changes in all the tiny plants. Yesterday, for the first time, I saw tiny seed heads on the grass. All the plants out here flower and set seed very quickly and you can miss seeing any of it by only a few days.

Saltcouch (Sporobolus virginicus)
I don't know the name of this grass
Seablite (Suaeda australis) which I have seen in flower nearly every year. I think it may have a slightly longer flowering period.