There had been a lot of wet days lately. This was originally planned to be a day walking on Royal National Park with Bob, but a super bad weather forecast we decided to postpone that walk for a day. However the day turned out a bit better than expected. The nasty weather cell hit the Hunter rather than Sydney. While we did have some rain, it was not that much. I had an early lunch and headed out. My plan was to first visit Sydney Park, then if the weather permitted visit some other nearby locations.
Sydney Park.
This is one of two turtles I found walking on the paths. Its something they do in wet weather.
And there were the usual stinkhrons. A lot of them were looking very waterlogged.
Phallus rubicundus
This is a stinkhorn “egg” – the structure the stinkhorn emerges from.
Lysurus mokusin
And one Black Swan was back.
And there was a lot of this Fungi. Probably Gymnopus sp.
Here’s is a Willie Wagtail. But in the bottom right, there is also the head of a turtle.
The Magpie Lark has caught a nice worm and probably taking it to feed chicks.
There was a large flock (30 – 40) Galahs.
And, the first time for a while, I saw some Brown Quail. There were three in this group.
One of the Quail seemed very interested in the turtle.
A Little Black Cormorant flashed by –
Some Jelly Fungi –
Ad I found the Tawny Frogmouths.
And lastly, An Earth Star –
Barton Park
There had been some short rain periods, but conditions were not too bad, so I caught a bus down to Barton Park.
These fungi are almost in a fairy ring –
The main pond was very high due to the rain. No stilts this time. I only saw an Egret and quite a few Chestnut Teals –
A group of Pacific Black Ducks flew past.
Red-browed Finch
Silvereye
And the Ibis were annoying the conditions.
Cooks River
I then walked back via the Cooks River past the golf course. At the SWOOS, it started raining quite heavily so I sheltered for a while underneath.
Here is a Great Cormorant.
At Cahill Park at the golf course gate was a large flock of Silver Gulls.
Sadly, along the foreshore of Barton Park was a huge amount of rubbish that had washed down the river.
I found a few nice clusters of Lepista sp.
As I was walking up onto the bridge over the Cooks River, near the Princes Highway, I heard a lot of commotion from the birds. Alarm calls plus a lot had taken to the air. I looked up for a raptor, but then spotted one flying past low down. It was a Collared Sparrowhawk with prey – a Welcome Swallow.
The Sparrowhawk flew up into a nearby tree. It was easy to locate because the Noisy Miners were going crazy. But when I approached the tree, the Sparrowhawk took off and flew across into Tempe Reserve.
I could hear the Noise Miners over there making a fuss!
Nearer was this Australasian Darter.
I then walked to Tempe and crossed the river agin and walked into Gough Whitlam Park. Here is a crab at the Billabong.
It didn’t take long to spot the resident Tawny Frogmouths.
But upstream, it was harder to find the juvenile Striated Herons. After some searching, I spotted one of the two chicks.
Then it started raining again, so I put my camera away for the walk home.