After coming back from a morning spent at Ferndale Park, I headed to the Hawthorne Canal in the afternoon for an hour or two. Things there started off quietly, but then the Sacred Kingfisher appeared and also the Brown Goshawk.
Here are some of the birds I saw – Continue reading
I thought it was about time for another visit to Ferndale Park at Chatswood to see how the fungi was going.
I found some fungi out, but not as much as I had hoped for. Continue reading
I stared the day by joining the Tempe Birdos for their monthly survey. Then after morning tea, I walked home via the Cooks River.
At Tempe, I joined the group that surveyed the wetlands. It was reasonable quiet. Here are some of the birds we saw – Continue reading
A few years ago, I was researching the named waterfalls near the towns of the Blue Mountains and came across this short article in the Blue Mountains Echo (7 March 1919, page 3) –
Speaking at Leura on Wednesday, Mr J. H Bloome stated that the Douglas Falls Trustees were inaugurating a system of constructing concrete steps. The idea had originated from Mr Burrell.
I wondered about this as I had never heard of a “Douglas Falls”. There are a lot of waterfalls close to Leura and some of them are obscure. But if a waterfall has a track to it with concrete stairs then it should be well known. I thought it could be a well know waterfall that may not have an official name – perhaps the one in Lyre Birds Dell or the one at the Pool of Siloam. I have always called these “Lyre Bird Dell Falls” and “Pool of Siloam Falls”.
Lyre Bird Dell Falls
It was the day I normally head off up the mountains for a bushwalk with Bob. But very wet weather was forecast, and due to a very nasty accident in the mountains a few days before, much of the Blue Mountains National Park was closed. A landslide had killed two visiting bushwalkers who were walking along a track below. Landslides can happen all the time, but I am sure they are much more likely after long wet periods when the ground is saturated – making cliffs and boulders a lot less stable. So we decided that another local waterfall walk would be a better activity.
Tipperary Falls
It turned out to be a very wet day, with lots of the tracks underwater and grassy fields sodden. But at least it meant the waterfalls would be flowing nicely. We started off at Boronia Park, on the Lane Cove River near Hunters Hill. At the park, we first visited Tipperary Falls. Continue reading
I was keen to have another look for fungi at Bola Creek. On the previous trip the fungi had been quite good, but due to high creek levels, the group had not been able to cross the creek on the track.
This time I travelled down with Valerie, and we spent a nice day wandering around Bola Creek on both sides of the creek. The creek was high and some of the stones used for the crossing had washed downstream, but that did not prevent us from crossing. I crossed with bare feet. We looked around carefully for fungi and slime moulds. Continue reading
It had been a while since I had visited Sassafras Gully at Springwood to check out the fungi. I was also on the lookout for birds.
The fungi turned out to be reasonable, but I had expected better. On this trip I entered via the track from Sassafras Gully Road, then walked down to the Lagoon, then continued down Glenbrook Creek and returned back to Springwood via Magdala Creek and Fairy Dell. Continue reading
I spent a nice day at the Central Coast Wetlands (Old Pioneer Dairy) at Wyong. I saw aa good range of birds, but nothing too special or unusual.
Here are some of the birds I saw – Continue reading
This was another field activity of The Sydney Fungal Studies Group. We met at the Waterfall Reserve at Mt Wilson and then walked slowly around the loop track looking for any fungi that was out.
Hygrocybe sp.
Conditions were quite good. Rain had earlier been forecasted, but we had a rain free day on our walk. The bush was moist but not sodden from earlier rain. Continue reading
I went on another outing with Bob. This time also accompanied by Doug and Nipper. Our intention was to look for an Aboriginal Art site close to Sydney. Bob had read about the site in a book, but that book did not specify the location. But he had done some more research as well as looking at online air photos and thought he knew the location of the site.
So we drove to a fire road, and then walked a bit and set off across country towards its possible location. We crossed a creek then climbed up onto a ridge. Upon reaching a small cliffline, we started looking around for the site. According to our notes, it featured an art cave and a nearby area with sharpening grooves and engravings. Continue reading
