I spent an interesting morning on a section of the Cooks River – between Illawarra Road and Gough Whitlam Park, trying to avoid some showers of rain.
It seemed fairly quiet at first. Not too many birds about. It was low tide.
Here are some birds –
Magpie Larks
Golden-Orb Weaving Spiders
I walked all the way to Gough Whitlam Park without seeing too much. I did spot the two Tawny Frogmouths – perched in exactly the same spot as I have seen them recently. Not the more “tawny” female sitting on the left.
A few more birds in Gough Whitlam Park.
Magpie Lark
Masked Lapwing
Grey Butcherbird
At Bayview Avenue, I was about to cross over into Waterworth Park, when it started raining. So I stopped and returned to Gough Whitlam Park. I looked carefully around the mangroves for the Sacred Kingfishers that I sometimes see. I eventually spotted one –
The local Sacred Kingfishers are very skittish, and it flew off before I could get closer for a better photo. A bit later, I saw one fly in, and then another fly off. So there were at least two Kingfishers.
Here is the one that flew is –
Again, it soon flew away to the far side of the river.
Crested Pigeon
Here are some Little Black Cormorants fishing in the river –
And then another lot of Little Black Cormorants flew in and joined the first lot –
Further along, I could hear the Noisy Miners making a fuss. I walked down to investigate and spotted a juvenile Nankeen Night Heron. It was being harassed by Noisy Miners and Magpie Larks.
It didn’t stay long. It soon flew off to the far side of the river pursued by a posse of harassing birds. I could the kerfuffle upstream, so headed back up the river, hoping to get more views. But the many mangroves means restricted views. The Heron was perched in a mangrove upstream, but again it was soon move don by the other birds. I stayed in the area for a while hoping to get some flight shots. But again – the mangroves made this very difficult.
I think this is the same juvenile bird that I have seen at Tempe Wetlands and on a recent Mudlarks bird survey upstream.
A few last birds –
Little Pied Cormorants – they were now perched in the mangroves near the SWSOOS.
And while waiting for the Nankeen Night Heron to fly back to my side, some flight shots of other birds –
Noisy Miner
Little Pied Cormorants
Not too bad fora wet morning on the river.