Oatley Park Visit – 21 January 2022

I spent a nice day out at Oatley Park with Valerie. On our visit we looked for fungi and birds.

King Parrot

We ended up walking a lot of the trails and tracks in the park. Here are some of the birds we saw –

Red Wattlebird

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

I recently read that all these Cockatoos are left handed. This one certainly is. Interesting.

Dollarbirds

You cause a juvenile on the left and an adult on the right.

We looked up at the termite nests to see if they have been used by Sacred Kingfishers or Kookaburras for nesting.

This Sacred Kingfisher seemed to be on sentry duty outside a nest hole in a termite nest.

We watched it chase away this much larger Laughing Kookaburra. Another sign that it is protecting a nest.

More holes. One looked like an active nest.

And the sentry nearby (with a moth)

Here is a juvenile Australasian Grebe in the wetlands.

I think this is a Striated Thornbill –

A Variegated Fairy-wren –

Two Osprey perched on the far side of Lime Kiln Bay –

We had change meeting with another birder, David Mercer, who went out of his way to show us two Tawny Frogmouths. I dont think we would have spotted them without him.

This one was higher up –

And this one slightly lower down –

The upper one is easier to see from a slightly different angle.

It later relaxed its pose.

Some trees –

I am not sure what causes the dimples and lumps in this Angophora –

A lot of these trees – Grey Gums? had circles around them. This seems to be caused by insects that feed off the tree. The insect starts feeding and the tree defends itself by closing the flow of sap in that area, so the insects moves around a bit. This is repeated until there is a circle.