Another very hot day…. means another canyon. I was heading up the mountains with Bob and we decided to visit Whungee Wheengee Canyon near Mt Wilson.
Bob in an upper section of the canyon
This is an attractive canyon, but many sections are difficult to photograph as it is tricky to get your camera out in the spectacular sections which tend to be very wet. Also, on our visit, the lighting tended to be quite harsh making photography difficult. Continue reading
I was invited to join Liz and Gemma on a walk through Birdwood Gully at Springwood looking for fungi and slime moulds. There had been some recent rain in the lower Blue Mountains, but I was not all that hopeful that we would find much. This turned out to be wrong. Perhaps because we had three pairs of eyes spotting for fungi, we found a reasonable amount. And also, what we did find was certainly quite interesting.
I think the most interesting find of the day was this beautiful strawberry coloured coral fungus. So far we have not been able to identify it. Liz had seen it before in Birdwood Gully, but I could recall having seen it in he nearby Sassafras Gully. Continue reading
A hot day was forecast. I was keen to get outdoors, but not looking for anything too strenuous. And some swimming would be nice. I ended up catching a B-Line bus to Mona Vale and then walking out to the beach.
I didn’t see any interesting birds there, so started waking south along the Coastal Path. I reached Turimetta Head and looked around, but again things were quiet. I continued past Turimetta Beach to Narrabeen Head. On the way I spotted a very distant raptor (a Sea Eagle I think?) – Continue reading
I was keen to get out and look to see if any fungi was out after recent rain. Ferndale Park at Chatswood is not too far way and easy to get to. I caught a train to Chatswood Station and then walked down to the park.
It was drier than I was hoping for but I did find a few things out – fungi and slime moulds. Here is some of the fungi – Continue reading
It was World Wetlands Day. I was on my way home from a meeting, and decided to call into the Tempe Wetlands to see what birds were around.
I was pleased to see a pair of Nankeen Night Herons. I have not seen these type of herons very often at the Wetlands (only on one prior occasion). It was hard to get good photos of them however. Continue reading
I wandered out to Bicentennial Park to photograph the birdlife. The forecast was for hot weather, but conditions were quite pleasant near the foreshore of the bay where there was a cool sea breeze. However, further away, it was hot and still – with lots of mosquitoes.
Striated Heron
I walked into the park from Concord West Station, and was soon at the waterbird pools. The usual birds were around. Here are some photos – Continue reading
Another very hot day was forecast. It was the day to head up to the mountains with Bob for a walk or canyon. After some discussion, we decided to visit Water Dragon Canyon. It is a small tributary of Wollangambe Canyon and joins it near Mt Wilson.
We set off from the RFS at Mt Wilson and walked down the exit track from the Tourist Section of Wollangambe Canyon. We were soon on the creek, but did not stop long. We climbed up the far side. It was quite hot, so we stopped for a break part way up. At the crest of the ridge, we walked a short way and turned off the track at a cairn. We then followed a fainter track down to a small side creek. We followed this downstream, and it soon merged with a larger creek, and then not far down that was our canyon. Continue reading
More hot weather! I was keen to get outdoors, but didn’t want to do anything too strenuous, so though a short walk from Heathcote to Lake Eckersley on the Woronora River may be nice.
I certainly did have a pleasant day. After catching a train to Heathcote, I walked down the street and through the Scout Camp to the Friendly Track. I followed this down to the Pipeline Access Road. Continue reading
This was a fairly quiet day spent in Malabar Headland National Park. The weather was fine and very hot, and I think this was why I did not see too much wildlife.
It was windy, and I thought that the Peregrine Falcon may be flying around. When I arrived at its roosting site, I met some guys there that were taking steps to set up a highline right over the nesting and roosting site of the Peregrine Falcons. I was concerned that this may be very detrimental to the birds and asked them not to do this. They were unaware of the area being a Peregrine Falcon nesting site, and they readily agreed to halt their activities. I explained that the birds were not nesting at that time, but that one of the pair uses the cliffs next to the nest site for roosting, resting and eating food. We all agreed to do some research to see if we could find more information about whether their activity would be detrimental to the birds. Continue reading
The weather forecast for the long weekend was for more heat wave conditions. Too hot for walking to and from remote canyons. So a group of us decided on visiting some canyons that didn’t requite too much effort to reach.
On Saturday, we visited one of the lower sections of Wollangambe Canyon. My previous visit to this section was on an overnight trip back in 2009. This time, we planned to not go as far downstream. The party was Enmoore, Wendy, Keith and myself. Continue reading
