The Mount Maunganui McDonald's Sand Sculpture competition went ahead yesterday despite the threat of rain.

'We had over 30 entries on the official roster for the sand sculpture competition,” says More FM's Jaron Jack.

'It was fantastic. People had an absolute blast and were spending the entire time smiling their faces off. It was the best reaction we've had to our sand sculpture competitions in quite a while.”

There were three to five members in each team with the competition running for an hour from 10am to 11am.

First place went to the Soul Surfer team.

'They are a great fan of the movie,” says Jaron. 'They made a replica which is where the lady had her arm bitten off with a surfboard. '

Second place went to the Mr Doughnut team who created a doughnut complete with icing, a plate, crumbs and a tea cup.

A bird made on the boundary line of the competition took out third place for The Chicks team.

'We had a phenomenal amount of people there which was great.

'We were taking entries right through to the end of the competition up to judging time.”

Harry, the local oystercatcher, marched firmly into the scene and was quickly photographed by Cate Duff.

She has been documenting the birds over the last few months while they've been nesting and raising their chicks on the Mount Main beach.

'He came charging down the beach and went in between all the creations just after the kids finished,” says Cate. 'It all happened so fast.”

The SunLive newsroom team couldn't resist adding a hard hat and clipboard to Harry's photo, as it appears he was planning to judge the sculptures.

'Everyone went in with the mentality of wanting to win,” says Jaron. 'To top that off we had a really vast variety of ideas come through from a basic model of the Mount all the way through to an actual shark attack. So it was mind blowing to see all these creations.”