Bushells Lagoon had been a very good venue for bird photography on my two earlier visits, so thought another visit could also be fruitful. It was.
Its a good place to look for and photograph raptors. A soon as I arrived I spotted a Whistling Kite flying around. It then perched for a while in a tree near the Lane. Continue reading
On recent trips to Landing Lights Wetland at Barton Park, I had observed on some occasions a pair of Black-Shouldered Kites. Checking past visits I had seen these birds only in the afternoon. I was on the lookout for them again, so set out after lunch this visit.
Its a nice bike ride along the Cooks River Cycleway to Tempe and then on the cycleway that goes to Botany Bay. At Barton Park I stopped at Landing Lights Wetland. Looking around the main pond did not reveal too many birds – a few ducks, moorhens and coots and the usual Black-winged Stilts. The Dotterels seem to have moved on. What I did see where quite a few Golden-headed Cisticola. There were also a lot of wasps around. Perhaps the Cisticola were eating the wasps? Here are some of my photos of the Cisticola – Continue reading
Digi Dave and myself visited Oatley Park for a day of Nature photography. We wandered around the lookouts and the wetlands of Lime Kiln Bay, and followed the tracks photographing birds, flowers and other interesting things.
Early during our visit, we bumped in another photographer – also named David. He was generous with his local knowledge, pointing out some nearby Tawny Frogmouths and also telling us where to look for more. Continue reading
I had suggested to Bob, that we visit the site of an old sawmill in a gully north of Faulconbridge sometime. The path to the sawmill is via the route used by an old funicular railway. By the time we got around to making the visit, Bob had expanded our activity to a longer bushwalk that would take us to a number of interesting sites.
Bob and myself started from Faulconbridge Station, and walked along the highway for a while. Our track to the sawmill site starts from the end of Highland Road, but before that we visited an interesting aboriginal site at Ticehurst Park. Continue reading
I made another visit to Nurragingy Reserve at Doonside to see what birds were out. My last visit had been very good – I was able to get some reasonable photos of a pair of Azure Kingfishers (although not at the same time), and had spotted a Rose Robin. I was again on the lookout for these birds and perhaps some others as well.
I arrived early, and went to the pond where I had seen the Azure Kingfishers on my previous visit. None were around, so I visited some nearby pools, looking for them or other birds. Continue reading
I travelled up to the Northern Beaches to visit Warriewood Wetlands and the adjoining Irrawong Reserve to look for and photograph birds. I didn’t have too much success spotting unusual birds on this visit.
I got off the B-line us at Warriewood and walked the short way past the shopping centre to the wetlands. There were lots of noisy Rainbow Lorikeets near the entrance. Continue reading
My previous visit to Bushells Lagoon at Wilberforce had only been a morning visit – and it had provided many opportunities to observe and photograph birds. I was keen to make a second visit to continue what I had been doing earlier.
Black-shouldered Kite
Like the last visit. I caught a train to Windsor, this time arriving earlier, and cycled out to Bushells Lagoon, this time via Freemans Reach. When I arrived no one else was around. Continue reading
I hadn’t been to Malabar Headland National Park for a while and thought it was time for another visit. It was not the most productive day it terms of photography however. I didn’t see any passing whales and not that many birds were active.
I did spot the resident Peregrine Falcon. It was around earlier, but in the late morning it had returned to one of its usual perches. However, it sat in the one spot for the rest of my visit. I had lunch while waiting for it to fly, looked out for whales and photographed gannets hunting for fish, but the Peregrine Falcon seemed happy to not do anything during the two hours I was in that area. Here it is just before I left two hours later – Continue reading
The Sydney Fungal Studies Group were doing their second fungal survey at Sydney Olympic Park. The first one had been quite successful and was at the Newington Armory. This second one was at the Wentworth Common.
Brown Quail
At Wentworth Common, we were met by Tina, an ecologist working at the Park. The fungi turned out to be very poor, which was not surprising given that it haas been quite dry. Here are some of what we found (mainly old looking puffballs) – Continue reading
Bob had been keen on exploring a few of the lesser known passes on Kings Tableland. He devised a trip that sounded reasonable. Drive out Kings Tableland Road, park at the starts of the Lion Head track, then walk along the road for about 2 km then head off into the bus to a headland south of Spring Creek, hopefully descend the pass off the headland, then cross Spring Creek and ascend Holbeachs Descent – a pass onto Lion Head.
Lion Head from Spring Creek Ridge
The trouble was we had very limited information on the Spring Creek Ridge Pass. The Jamison Project lists the pass and has some information here, but the author did not actually traverse the pass. Continue reading
