Day 41 of lockdown. My friend Valerie, that I have been exercising with during the lockdown, had seen my photos of the birds at Barton Park, and had accepted an invitation to meet at the park and then walk around seeing what birds we could find.
I cycled to the park, and met Valerie there. We then spent about three hours walking around the large park. During the lockdown, I have visited Barton Park a lot – which is understandable being a good location for bird watching and it is also a nice bike ride to get there. This results in many similar photos – but the species I observe does change somewhat between visits. On my previous visit, I had seen large flocks of Nutmeg Mannikins and I had thought that there should also be the native Chestnut-breasted Mannikins around too. This time we saw a fair few Chestnut-breasted Mannikins in two places.
On the ride out, I stopped to photograph a Sacred Kingfisher on the Cooks River, not far downstream from Illawarra Road.
I was meeting Valerie at 9 am, so I dint stay too long. I arrived at Barton Park a little early, and so did Valerie. Here are some of the birds we saw –
At Landing Lights Wetland, there were plenty of Welcome Swallows –
And here are some Yellow Thornbills –
The Pied Stilt numbers in the ponder increasing. I think I counted 18.
And when we arrived there were three Royal Spoonbills.Two of them left, but this one stayed.
Walking up to the higher area near the old stadium, we saw this New Holland Honeyeater –
Once on top, a large flock of Little Black Cormorants flew past. Here are some of them –
There were a lot of Red-browed Finches feeding in the grass.
And we heard, and then later spotted some Yellow-rumped Thornbills –
We saw several of the resident Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes –
And we saw a lot of Mannikins. It was difficult to tell which species. Some were Nutmeg Mannikins. But a small flock were Chestnut-breasted Mannikins –
We then went back down to Landing Lights Wetland. Not much change.
Our last venue was the old sporting fields near the golf driving range. Here is another Yellow-rumped Thornbill –
And here is a Brown Honeyeater –
We then left Barton Park, and were going tom meet up at Gough Whitlam Park for a coffee. On the ride over, I spotted a Sacred Kingfisher at Cahill Park.
The Kingfisher didn’t stay out for long and soon disappeared into some small mangroves. I then continued to Gough Whitlam Park where we had lunch and coffee. We had a look around for more Kingfishers without any luck. I then farewelled Valerie and I checked out some of the palces nearby for Kingfishers. Not finding any, I decided to ride back to Cahill Park. Sure enough the Sacred Kingfisher was back out.
It did stay there for long however. It flew away towards the airport.
I then cycled around Tempe Reserve without seeing any good birds, so went back to the Cooks River. This time I had more luck at Gough Whitlam Park. I spotted the Sacred Kingfisher in the mangroves. I took off and caught a crab.
After this the Kingfisher flew to the far side of the river. So I headed for home.