On my way home from Sydney Olympic Park, I stopped off for a while at Sydney Park for an hour or two. Like on previous recent visits, I was on the lookout for Crakes, Rails and Snipes. And like on the visits, I had no success. So I ended up taking photos of some of the many Welcome Swallows.
It was challenging to try and get a photo of them as they dived into the water and interesting to see what they were doing. Continue reading
After visiting the Greenway, I was undecided where to head to for the rest of the day. Storms seemed to be approaching, so I made my way to Central on the light rail and on the way consulted the weather radar. I ended up deciding on a visit to Sydney Olympic Park.
I first visit the ponds at Bicentennial Park. Not that many birds were around. Here are some – Continue reading
This was the first of three bird activities I did on the day. I arrived at Taverners Hill Light Rail Station to join the Greenway Bird Group for the ir monthly survey along the Greenway to Hawthorne.
Taverners Hill Station is always a good place to start.Being high up it gives a good view into the trees and often a lot of birds are observed. This time we spotted some New Holland Honeyeaters, White-plumed Honeyeaters, Bulbuls Silvereyes. Continue reading
I spent a few hours at Ferndale Park, in the company of Philip, a fellow bird photographer, who was keen to explore the world of fungi. Despite a lot of recent rain, there was not a huge amount of fungi out. But we did find some nice fungi and some slime moulds.
Here are some photos – Continue reading
It had been a while since I had been able to join the Mudlarks for their monthly bird survey along the Cooks River. The group meets at 7 am on the second Tuesday of the month, at the rickety bridge over the Cooks River at Lang Road.
While were meeting up, we noticed a lot of Welcome Swallows flying around near the bridge, and also high overhead there were some larger birds flying around too. They were White-throated Needletails. Continue reading
On my way home from Malabar Headland, I stopped off and spent an hour or two at Sydney Park. I was on the lookout for some rare birds – but like previous visits did not spot any.
A day or two before, a Lewin’s Rail had been heard (but not seen). On this visit, I too heard the Lewin’s Rail, and did spot it a couple of times. But it was far too fast and elusive for any photos. It was making its call in a small area alongside one of the ponds, and moved perhaps 20 m along the shore and then back, but all the time remained hidden in the reeds. This was between 5 pm and 5:30 pm. It would call every few minutes. Continue reading
I was supposed to be bushwalking in Royal National Park, but due to an adverse weather forecast, and a huge amount of rain the day before, the walk was sensibly cancelled. But, as often happens, then day was not too bad. After looking at the rain radar and weather forecasts, I decided to head out to Malabar Headland National Park. It would give me a chance to see how the resident birds were going, and also powerful seas were forecast, and the headland is a good place to see such things.
So I caught a bus to Maroubra Beach, and walk to the headland. It was a warm humid day, and there was not much of a sea breeze. I saw a few New Holland Honeyeaters and Superb fairy-wrens, but not much else in the way of birds. No raptors this visit. Continue reading
During the past few days, there had been heavy rain in the area, but it was not too bad on Saturday morning, so I joined the tempe Birdos for their monthly bird survey.
On he last survey, the Tempe Wetlands were completely dry. Now all three ponds were brim full. But it seemed that a lot fo the resident birdlife had not returned. It was relatively quiet. And we also had a rain storm in the middle of our survey, which made photography difficult. Here are some of the birds we saw – Continue reading
Rain was forecast, but looking at the rain radar, showed there was not that much rain falling in the inner west of Sydney, so I decided to make another visit to Sydney Park for some more bird photography. The bids I ended up photographing were very similar to what I had seen on my other recent trips. One new observation was a Little Grassbird.
Little Grassbird
Here are some photos – Continue reading
I am always on the lookout for new places to observe birds, and a while back, Bill, had suggested I visit the Central Coast Wetlands at Wyong. I looked up the area, and I could see that they could be reached by short walk from Wyong Station.
Square-tailed Kite
The Wetlands are situated on the site of an old dairy – The Pioneer Dairy, and there are still signs of the dairy in the area. I caught an early train to Wyong and it was a 15 minute walk to the Wetlands. On my visit, there was one large reedy pool – with a lot of birds present. In wetter times, some of the nearby pools do fill up. There is also Pioneer Creek which flows through the site. On my visit, the creek was very dry. There are two walks along the creek- and they were well worth doing. Continue reading
