I started the day by visiting Sydney Park for some early morning bird photography. Then went home for brunch, and then later met two friends at The Royal Botanic Gardens to look for the resident Powerful Owls.
At Sydney Park, not long after I arrived I spotted a Sacred Kingfisher perched on a tree on the island of the Island Pond. Continue reading
This was another very good day of bird photography at Emu Green at Emu Plains.
Each visit I make to this area, I see some of the same birds I have seen on previous visits and I also see a few birds there that I have not seen before. There seems to be continually varied cast of birds present. This visit, I was able to get reasonable photos of Scarlet Honeyeaters and Rainbow bee-eaters. I had seen those species on my last visit. New birds included Rufous Whistlers and a Mistletoebird. Continue reading
I spent another full day of bird photography at the Northern Beaches area. On the day, I visited a number of sites.
The first place I visited was where Osprey had been nesting. No Osprey were at the nest and it looked like the nest was no longer used. This was the same as a previous visit. I then headed to the sea cliffs to a Peregrine Falcon nesting site. As I approached the nest area, I spotted one of the Peregrine Falcons perched on the cliff. When it saw me, it took off and circled around. Continue reading
My friend Wendy had organised a walk around the Blue Gum Swamp circuit in Blue Mountains National Park at Winmalee. This was an excellent place to visit – it had been raining, and the rain was forecast to stop in the early morning, at about the time we would be setting off, and it was the right time of year for a lot of orchids to be flowering. Plus the Blue Gums along the swamp are quite remarkable – and not burnt out by the recent bushfires.
On the walk were Wendy, Don, Enmoore and myself. The rain had stopped and held off for most of the walk, except for one short squall. We started off walking down through the swamp area – and then returned via the Shaws Ridge Fire Road. We saw orchids out all along the way. Here is Wendy photographing a small orchid – Continue reading
This visit to Malabar Headland was a bit of a dull day – and perhaps not the best day to see and photograph birds.
I headed out to the Peregrine Falcon area near Boora Point without seeing too much of interest. I then started looking around for the Peregrine Falcons. I could not see any at first, but a short time later one landed on a ledge below where I was. Continue reading
This was an interesting and very pleasant walk with Bob on two of the ridges above the upper Grose Valley. We had two main objectives – one was to visit the old coal mine near Jinki Creek, and the other was to look at the Lost Pillar – a spectacular detached pinnacle at Dalpura Head. Neither of us had been to the coal mine and Bob had not seen the pinnacle before. As well, it was forecast to get to a temperature of 30° in Sydney that day, and the temperature forecast for Katoomba was only 22°.
The Lost Pillar
Another secondary objective was to look at wild flowers. This started at the first hill on Jinki Ridge – it was covered with small Caladenia Orchids. Continue reading
This was a very nice walk organised by Brian Everingham for the National Parks Association of NSW. We met at Wattle Flat at Audley and then walked downstream to just past the Varney Bridge. Then we climbed up the track to Robertsons Knoll and walk south along the track towards Uloola Falls, then, not too far along, descended on the track that took us down to Wattle Flat.
In the party were Brian, Faye, Valerie, Sue B, Sue W, Derek, Deb, Peter, Gavin, Charlie and myself. It was a great time of the year to do this walk – we were treated to a magnificent display of wildflowers, including six species of orchid in flower. Continue reading
I spent a very full day photographing the birds at Emu Green. This area is nestled between the foot of the Blue Mountain, the Nepean River and a series of Correctional Centres. One aim of this visit was to see and photograph some of the beautiful Rainbow Bee-eaters there.
I did see the Rainbow Bee-eaters. But the most interesting bird photography occurred on the walk from the station to the park entrance. Walking past one for the prison farms, I heard a commotion going on. I unpacked my camera and witnessed a spat between a Whistling Kite and some Ravens. This altercation went on for a number of minutes. Here are some of the photos – Continue reading
This visit was with friends John and Chuin Nee and their boys Jasper and Sebastian. It was one of those rare weekend days that the east side of the park was open, and we took advantage of that. But so did a lot of others – the park was quite crowded.
I had promised the others whales and Peregrine Falcons, but we ended up seeing no whales and, only one of the Peregrine Falcons appeared – and that was a very brief fly past. But there is always something to see on the headland. Continue reading
I spent the Saturday morning bird watching and photographing. Early on, I joined the Tempe Birdos for their monthly bird survey. After morning tea, I cycled home slowly along the Cooks River seeing what birds were out.
At Tempe, I joined the group surveying the wetlands. Birdwise – it was fairly quiet. Here are some of the birds we saw – a Red Wattlebird and a Superb Fairy-wren. Continue reading
