I haded up to the Waterfall Reserve at Mt Wilson with other members of The Sydney Fungal Studies Group Inc for their scheduled activity looking for fungi.
This are normally has more rain than Sydney, but rainfall fungus indicated that it had not been as wet as areas closer to the coast in the lead up. But the cooler temperatures of the mountains help. Continue reading
David Hufton was keen on a photographic trip to parts of the Illawarra Coast and invited me to join him. He wanted to visit some rock platforms and I suggested calling in to some wetlands along the way.
I met David at Helensburgh and we set off towards the coast. On the way, we first stopped at Stanwell Tops – some morning mist was incredibly beautiful in the trees with shafts of sunlight filtering down. Continue reading
Over the years I had visited most of the Narrow Neck Passes but there was one I had not visited – Dunphys Pass. This was an early Narrow Neck pass found by Myles Dunphy and party. Bob suggested a walk from the Dunphy Camping Area up to Dunphys Pass onto Narrow Neck and then back via Duncans Pass. It seemed like a good plan.
In an earlier essay I had listed the passes of Narrow Neck that I know of. Dunphys Pass was the only one on that list that I had not visited. Bob had done the pass many years earlier. Continue reading
There had been a reasonable amount of rain so I thought it worth checking out Ferndale Park for fungi. The park is only a short walk from Chatswood Station and I thought I could extend it a fair bit by walking down to the Lane Cove River then walking through Lane Cove National Park along the river to Macquarie Park.
The fungi in Ferndale Park was only average. Here is some of what I found – Continue reading
This was a walk led by Brian Everingham for the National Parks Association of NSW. On the day, the weather forecast was for rain and wind. We had cold wind, but were lucky to not have any rain for the duration of our walk. Brian was interested in observing some of the management issues for this part of Botany Bay – Kamay National Park.
In the party, as well as Brian were Kathy, Peter, Chris, Mary, Anne-Maree, Margaret and myself. After meeting at La peruse, we first toured some of the French sites – and old grave and an obelisk. Continue reading
I attended the Field Activity of the Sydney Fungal Studies Group Inc at Coachwood Glen in the Blue Mountains near Blackheath.
On the day, the weather was quite cold and windy. It was fairly sheltered in the glen – being part way in Megalong. Despite a fair bit of rain in Sydney in the lead up, not that much rain had fallen at Blackheath so we were uncertain how the fungi would be. It turned out to be reasonable – but not great compared to other visits. But we did find some interesting species. Continue reading
I spent another very enjoyable and interesting day at Nurragingy Reserve at Doonside. My main aim was to try and locate and photograph an Azure Kingfisher – a bird I cannot recall seeing before and certainly one I have never photographed. I had seen a few photos published online of this bird taken at Nurragingy Reserve a few days earlier.
I arrived around 8:30 am and went to the main duckpond. I got my camera ready, and photographed some of the nearby birds. Continue reading
This was a walk with Bob where we visited an obscure track that starts on the Shipley Plateau. It is described on Allan Wells Website on his Blackheath Page – walk number 11.
We started out on cold windy day on the track that leaves between the RFS Shipley Headquarters and “Waratah” property. As we walked towards the cliffs, we noticed several other tracks devoted off the track – but it was easy to follow the main track. It looked like these tracks are, or rather had been, used by mountain bikers. Continue reading
I thought it may be worth checking out Ferndale Park at Chatswood to see if any fungi was out. Looking at online weather data, it looks like there had been around 60 mm or rain in the area a few days earlier.
There was some fungi out, but not that much compared to good conditions. And most of the fungi I found was not that interesting in terms of being colourful species good for photography. But, it has been so dry recently that some fungi is much better then nothing. Also – the fungal abundance at Ferndale Park was much better than that at Wolli Ck the day before. Continue reading
I have already posted some photos taken at Vivid. I also on two occasions took sequences of still photos that I converted into time lapse sequences and then combined them together to make a longer video. Here it is –
