I spent a nice day out at Landing Lights Wetland at Barton Park. I cycled there along the cycleways and arrived mid morning.
Brown Honeyeater
Many of the usual birds were there – Black-winged Stilts and a variety of ducks. At first I could not see any Black-fronted Dotterels. But moving around I spotted four of them. I was lucky to get reasonable shots on one of them in flight. Continue reading
After finding lots of interesting fungi the day before, I thought it about time I headed up to Lawson and Hazelbrook to look for fungi. It had been a while since I had been to the waterfalls south of Lawson and the Terrace Falls area south of Hazelbrook. They can be linked conveniently.
Gloeocantharellus novae-zelandiae
I started at Lawson, and walked down to the top carpark for the waterfall loop. I was soon at Adelina Falls. I didn’t find much fungi there, but did manage to spot some Mycena – Continue reading
I had a very interesting trip down Sassafras Gully to looks for and photograph the fungi. Despite it being fairly dry recently, there was a reasonable amount of fungi out. On this trip, I started down the track from the end of Sassafras Gully Road, walked down to Glenbrook Creek and returned via Magdala Creek and Fairy Dell.
Here is a selection of what I saw. First a few specific examples of boletes – Continue reading
I had been talking to friends about my recent visits to the Zoo, and they decided to make a visit of their own and invited me to join them. In the group were John, his two young sons Jasper and Sebastian and their Nana, Sue. Being school holidays, it was very crowded, but we still all had a great day.
Here are some of the animals we saw – Continue reading
Wendy invited me to join her on a walk through part of the Blue Breaks during Easter. Also in the party was Keith. The Blue Breaks is a remote part of the Southern Blue Mountains. It is also a very rugged area.
We started the trip, with a log drive to Yerranderie via roads that pass close to Oberon and Mt Werong.
Even with an early start, we did not arrive at Yerranderie till after 11 am. Wendy parked her car at the campground near the old Police Station, and then we set off down an old farm road to the Tonalli River. Continue reading
I made a visit to Malabar Headland National Park to do some bird photography. I was mainly looking for raptors, but had no success. I found quite a few honeyeaters – mostly New Holland Honeyeaters. But the main subjects of my visit turned out to be a flock of Welcome Swallows.
There seem to be a few collective rounds for Swallows. One of them is a “kettle”. On the southern side of the headland, I came across a large flock in the one small area. I was able to get quite close and photograph them in flight. They were clearly after small flying insects. Here are some of my photos of them competing for prey – Continue reading
I made another visit to Taronga Zoo. This was not long after my previous visit. On that occasion I had been able to get some reasonable photos of the baby Tiger cubs but the baby Red Panda cubs had been asleep during my time at the Zoo. This time I was more successful.
It took a few visits, but at last the Red panda triplets were more active, and very cute exploring their environment. Continue reading
I spent a pleasant morning at Ferndale Park at Chatswood photographing fungi. It had been two weeks since my previous visit, and since that time a lot of fungi had fruited. Some of what I found this visit was now looking a bit dried out, but a fair bit was fresh.
I was on the lookout for waxcaps, and found two varieties. One was a shiny red species, perhaps Hygrocybe erythrocala. Continue reading
This was a very fruitful field activity of The Sydney Fungal Studies Group Inc. With a lot of people looking for fungi, a fascinating collection was observed.
I had been to Coachwood Glen, not long before and that had been a very interesting visit. On this occasion, we found some of the same fungi – looking a bit drier, but also quite a git of fresh fungi. The highlight, for me, was observing some interesting waxcaps. These are all probably the multicolour Hygrocybe iropus. Some of them, had a beautiful blue hue. Continue reading
I made a repeat visit to the Landing Lights Wetland at Barton Park. Last visit I had observed a pair of Black-shouldered Kites and I was interested to see if they were still in the vicinity. I had an interesting afternoon.
When I arrived at the wetlands, I noticed the usual ducks, stilts and a few Black-fronted Dotterels. Continue reading
