Thanks to JG who left a comment on my blog about a Black Swan and its cygnet that had turned up at the Boat Harbour earlier that day. I have never seem one along the Cooks River before. So on my way home from Oatley Park, I detrained at Canterbury and walked down to the Boat Harbour.
I saw the Black Swans straight away. They were asleep near the Boat Harbour entrance. Continue reading
I spent a nice day wandering around the tracks at Oatley Park. There was a lot to see plenty of birds, orchids and lots of Water Dragons.
This visit, I walked from Oatley Station, and started off along the lower track to Jew Fish Bay. On the way, I bumped into Allen, who I know from NPA bushwalking. He also had his camera. I then continued on the track around the headland, then made circuit of the road around the headland visiting Websters Lookout and Hills Peak Lookout (where I stopped for lunch), then down the road to Lime Kiln Bay, and from there along the western track to the Lime Kiln Bay Wetlands. Then along the road to Frog Hollow, then up the track and back to the top entrance. Continue reading
Wendy had organised a get together of friends. The plan was to meet at the Royal Hotel at Springwood for dinner, then walk down into Birdwood Gully to look for Fireflies and Glow-worms.
At the dinner were Wendy, Enmoore, Don and his daughter Elata, and Pete and Steph, as well as myself. After a good dinner, Wendy, Enmoore, Don, Elata and myself made out way down the Birdwood Gully track. It was raining lightly which may have stopped to fireflies from coming out, as we didn’t see any. Wendy and Steph had seen plenty a few days before, and told us about them, so that was one of the reasons we had made the visit. But we did see some nice Glow-worms. Continue reading
A Great Conjunction is soon approaching. A conjunction is when two objects in space appear close to each other. In other words their angular separation is small. An example could be if Venus and The Moon appear close to each other. A Great Conjunction is the term reserved for a conjunction between the two planets Jupiter and Saturn. The approaching Great Conjunction will be on 21 December 2020.
Jupiter and Saturn – about 1 lunar diameter apart (17 Dec) – photographed between gaps in the clouds, early evening.
Great Conjunctions occur roughly every twenty years. The time is worked out from the periods of each planet ( = the product of their periods/difference in periods). The approaching Great Conjunction will be one of the closest for many years (the one in 1623 was closer) – I think they will be about 1/5 of a lunar diameter apart at closest approach. This is the first close Great Conjunction that will be viewed by telescope. The 1623 Great Conjunction was closer (about 1/14 of a lunar diameter), but harder to view as the planets were closer to the Sun’s position. And even though the telescope had been invented and used for about twenty years by that time, it does not seem to have been observed through a telescope. Continue reading
I was very fortunate to observe a flock of Swift Parrots on their short term stay at Mt Annan Botanic Gardens last year. In summer they move to Tasmania to breed.
These beautiful birds are critically endangered. One of the reasons is that their nesting habitat in Tasmania is being destroyed. There are large areas of national parks in Tasmania, but these birds move around depending on food sources. And quite often the best food is that provided by flowering Eucalypts in logging areas.
Some people care for the future of these unique birds. One person who does is Bob Brown. He has recently been arrested twice for protesting about their habitat loss. The real crime is that the habitat of the birds is being destroyed.
A wet day was forecast for the mountains. It was the day for a canyoning or bushwalking trip with Bob, so we decided to head up the mountains and then work out what we would do when we were up there and could see what the weather was like. As it turned out, it was a relatively fine day, at least during the period of our visit. We visited two short canyons near Bell.
The first one, Kangaroo Corner Canyon, I had last visited back in 2005. It is not a great canyon, as canyons go, but still a nice creek with some good formation. The canyon lies in a crown land reserve, and this extends to the Darling Causeway – so that is the best access, rather than walking in through private land from the Chifley Road.
On the walk in we found some Horned Orchids – Continue reading
I made a quick visit to Malabar Headland National Park this morning. I had checked the weather forecast the evening before and it looked like the morning would be fine and the afternoon wet. I should have checked the forecast in the morning before I set off. It turned out to be the other way around – a wet morning and a finer afternoon. Nevertheless it was still quite nice in the conditions.
I did carry a bird camera – but did not use it at all. At one time, near Boora Point, I did spot a Peregrine Falcon flying towards Magic Point art high speed. Continue reading
I made a quick visit to the Cooks River to check the status of some of the local birds.
The first stop was to check a Magpie Lark nest. On previous visits I had seen an adult bird sitting on the nest. Now I could see two chicks. Continue reading
I spent an interesting day at Emu Green at Emu Plains photographing the birds. Like pries trips I was looking for Emu Wrens, and also like most previous trips I did not spot any. But lots of other nice birds still made for a good day.
On the walk to Emu Green from the station, I looked out for the Whistling Kite nest. I spotted the nest but it looked to be abandoned. Continue reading
It was nice to attend the Sydney University Bushwalkers Christmas Walk to the Coxs River last weekend. The year before things were quite different with bushfires raging nearby, the walk was changed from the Coxs River to Sassafras Gully. So it was nice to return to the sculptured granite of the Coxs River.
I travelled up with Roger, and on the way, we stopped off at Narrow Neck at Katoomba to look for pink Flannel Flowers. We soon found some.
But we only found individual flowers rather than a dense mat which I have seen in previous years. But there were a lot of buds – so more will flower very soon. Continue reading
