I was originally planning to head up to Springwood and check out the fungi in the gullies there, but wth poor weather forecast, I thought it would be better to go on shorter trip to Ferndale Park at Chatswood. The rain radar showed rain in the mountains that was slowly heading to the city. As it turned out – I had light rain while I was at Ferndale Park and my visit was quite short.
Despite fair bit of recent rain, the fungi was not that great. Still too early in the season. Continue reading
I had been hoping to make another visit to Nurragingy Reserve for a while but there had been railway trackwork or unsuitable weather. This day was not ideal – I had a late start after waiting at home for delivery to arrive, and it was forecast to be quite a hot day – and it is always hotter in the western suburbs.
So I didn’t arrive until after 11 am, but it turned out to be worthwhile trip. When I walked into the Reserve I could hear the alarm calls of some birds and looked up. I soon spotted a raptor. I think it was a Brown Goshawk. Continue reading
It was nice to join a group of friends on a trip down Jugglers Canyon at Medlow Bath. In the party were John and Chuin Nee and their two young sons Jasper and Sebastian, Martin, Su Li, Brent, Keith and myself.
We parked at the end of the fire trail near the airport at Medlow bath and were soon on the track down to the start of the canyon. We soon reached the creek. The water level was high but not dangerous. Continue reading
I made an afternoon trip to Sydney Olympic Park to see what birds were around. It turned out to be relatively quiet.
While there, I first went to the Waterbird Refuge at Bicentennial Park and then to Wentworth Common and back the same way. All the birds I spotted were more or less the usual birds I find at the park. Here are some – Continue reading
I don’t normally visit Malabar Headland at this time of the year. The Peregrine Falcons are scarce and no whales are around. But I had read that the trackwork was complete and I wanted to see what it was like.
So I spent most of a day out on the headland. I walked in this visit from Maroubra and it was good to see the headland from this angle rather than the shorter but more boring walk from Malabar. Continue reading
I had been meaning to head up to Long Reef on the Northern Beaches again but the weather forecast recently had not been good or the tide not right or the surf conditions were forecast to be too dangerous to go onto the rock platform. But this time I had at least the right tide and the right surf. The weather stayed reasonable for most of my visit.
I photographed mainly raptors on my visit – and made the most of three that were flying for short times. But when I arrived, the first bird I saw at the lookout was this White-faced Heron flying past. Continue reading
In May 2020, I had been on a walk with Bob and Doug where we had visited Lerida Gorge. That had been a very interesting and quite spectacular walk and Bob and myself had planned to return. A warm but wet day was forecast and that seemed reasonable for another visit.
This time, we parked at the turn off to a fire road that goes part way out to the ridge between Arethusa Canyon and Alpheus Canyon. We walked a kilometre or so along the My Hay Road and then turned off at spot height 916 and walked along a ridge that would lead down to the creek that flows through Lerida Gorge. Continue reading
After the Mudlarks Bird Survey, I headed home and after an early lunch I decided to look for some more local birds, so I caught some buses down to Barton Park. From there I planned to walk home via the Cooks River.
This worked out well, but not that many birds were out. At Barton Park, I first visited Landing Lights Wetland. Here are some of the birds there – Continue reading
With the Government adopting the “let it rip” strategy to deal with the current Omicron Covid situation, I was wondering if the local bird survey would be on. The Tempe Birdos had cancelled their recent survey. But the Mudlarks did hold their survey along the Cooks River – but with the group keeping distant and with no post survey morning tea.
This month’s survey was upstream from the Lang St Bridge to the Boat Harbour and Cup and Saucer Creek Wetlands then back via the far side of the river. Here are some of the birds we saw – Continue reading
My friend Valerie, was keen to get outdoors for a day, and we discussed a few options and ended up deciding to visit Bola Creek in Royal National Park to see what fungi was out. So we headed down to the south end of Lady Carrington Drive and walked the short distance down to Bola Creek. Once there we wandered upstream at first looking for fungi, then around the picnic area. There was not a real lot out – but we did find some nice species.
Here is some of what we found. Starting with some waxcaps – Continue reading
