I had some spare time, so headed out to Wolli Creek for a short walk. On some previous visits I had seen some Hyacinth Orchids developing, and I expected this time for them to be out in flower. They were, and not only that, I found a few more clusters of them. They were all quite close to Girrahween Park near Earlwood.
These Hyacinth Orchids are all Dipodium variegatum. Continue reading
I have recently been investigating antlions. When I was a science teacher, I often used to get year 7 students to find and collect ant lions from the playground and then set them up in the lab and feed them for a few weeks before letting them go.
Their traps are easy to spot – small conical pits in sand, usually dug out in dry locations like under buildings or in small caves. My students used to use metal beakers to scoop up the sand where the pit was, and then empty the sand onto a large sheet of newspaper and slowly sift through the sand looking for the insect. Once found, they would place some sand in beaker and add the antlion and observe it. Continue reading
I was preparing to photograph the Moon again. Another Supermoon was occurring later this month. I was after some better images, but using the same equipment – a hand held camera and telephoto lens. This time I wanted to take a series of photos and then stack them using software to produce a higher quality composite image. I hadn’t done this before, so watched a video on Youtube that demonstrated the technique with the Moon and gave links to the software (a program called Registax).
Well, a few days before the Supermoon, I took 15 or so pictures of the Moon and tried out the software. The video warned that it may crash a few times during use (it did), but I persevered, re-cropped my original images and tried again and it worked quite well. Here is a final image –
And here is one of the set of images that I included in the stack – Continue reading
Another day at the Zoo. This time, as a Zoo Friend, I had been invited to a preview of the new Squirrel Monkey Walkthrough.
It was a very hot day in Sydney and the animals were feeling the heat. I was too! My booking for the Squirrel Monkeys was not until the middle of the day. Due to the heat, I arrived early and spent a fair bit of time in the Platypus House and the Nocturnal House. These are always challenging places to try and get photos. Continue reading
Each year, about this time, Sydney University Bushwalkers, have a trip to a nice campsite on the Coxs River. The campsite is a nice and shady spot on a grassy bank above the river. From it, it is a short distance to a great swimming pool in the river. Nearby are many sets of rapids and some beautiful granite slabs and boulders.
Paradise? Yes, except for a lot of flies. But perhaps they come out after some of the gourmet food that is shared amongst the party? The other factor that impacts on enjoyment is the river level. This year it was quite reasonable – and the pool was quite deep with clear water. For future reference the river height upstream at Glenroy Bridge was 0.55 m. Continue reading
I was with a group of friends (Su Li, Brent, Martin and Damon) and we were heading up for the Sydney University Bushwalkers Christmas Walk to the Coxs River. As we often do on these walks, we detoured on the way at Medlow Bath and made a quick trip through the Grand Canyon.
One of the party, Martin, claimed it was much quicker walking to the canyon via the old Point Pilcher Track from the road near the Katoomba Airfield at Medlow Bath rather then the Evans Lookout Road at Blackheath. So we set out from there. It didn’t take us long to descend down to the Grand Canyon Track, and then we climbed back up to where the track traverses along a ledge through the canyon. Continue reading
A hot day was forecast, so I thought it may be nice to do a walk with plenty of swimming opportunities. So I headed to Glenbrook with the intention of walking through Glenbrook Gorge.
Glenbrook Gorge
I thought, that it would be hotter later in the day, so I first walked from the station to the park entrance, and then to the Causeway and up the other side to the first bend and them along the track to Euroka. On the way I encountered plenty of wildflowers and also saw the Aboriginal sharpening grooves in the creekbed near the creek crossing. Continue reading
I wanted to get some video along the Cooks River to test out a new UAV. So I cycled down to the parks near Wardell Road and also took along my camera. As I rode along the cycleway, I saw a dark object in the grass near the river. It looked like it could be the shell of a turtle, so I turned around and rode back for a closer look, thinking perhaps it was just a rock. No! It turned out to be a rather large crab. This was the first time I had seen one of these on the land away from the river.
It was much bigger than a hand in size and about 5 metres from the bank. As I unpacked my camera, it was heading quickly back to the water, but I was quick and managed to get a few photos. It was high tide in the river, but the water was still perhaps 50 cm below the wooden sleepers that line the banks of the river along this section. But nearby was a sort of drain that it must have used to climb out. Continue reading
This was an excellent weekend of canyoning in the Northern Blue Mountains. On the Saturday I was in a group that visited Banks Canyon in the Wollangambe Wilderness and then we camped overnight at Barcoo Swamp. On Sunday, I joined two more friends for a trip through Rocky Creek Canyon.
Rocky Creek Canyon
Banks Canyon is one of many canyon tributaries of Bungleboori Creek North Branch. It had been a while since my last visit to the canyon (2009). On that trip, our party had earlier on the day gone down Hole in the Wall Canyon, and then after lunch visited Banks Canyon. To do both these canyons is not that much more effort than doing only one of them and is a great day out. But on this trip, I wanted to spend a bit of time photographing in Banks Canyon and we also had a fairly late start (we left the carpark on the Waratah Ridge at 10:45 am). Continue reading
This was a very hot day. Too hot for a long walk, so I just did a short walk along the Two Valleys Track at Wolli Creek from Bexley North to Turrella. I was looking for birds and orchids – but the birds seemed to be hiding from the heat.
Early on, I did see a large bird in the treetops. I looked like a raptor – perhaps a Goshawk or an Osprey? (Update – Brian Everingham has suggested it may be a Goshawk) It was being harassed by a smaller bird – and so quickly few away and I was only able to get a poor photo. Continue reading
