Exploring Sydney - and further afield. (5 Viewers)

[MKinHK]

Royal National Park: Lady Carrington Drive, Forest Walk and Couranga Track
26 January 2023



I enjoyed my previous mega trek through Royal National Park so much that I decided to do it again, this time catching an Uber to Audley from Sutherland station (about $20 AUD), walking south along Lady Carrington Drive 1 from 0800, west along the Forest Track 2, from 1600 and then across the Hacking River 3 and upward along the Couranga Track 4 -6 (1700) to Waterfall station 7 just in time to see the 1920 for Sydney depart.



Audley's still waters and tree-fringed lawns have the typical birds of any park with water in Sydney - Maned Ducks, Pacific Black Ducks, Dusky Moorhens, Masked Lapwings, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Noisy Miners, and Rainbow Lorikeets plus Little Pied and Little Black Cormorants and, according to one chatty lady, larcenous Laughing Kookaburras that terrorise the picnic tables, although I missed them this time.



The nine kilometres of Lady Carrington Drive once again delivered some fine riverine forest birding, with early highlights including half a dozen Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos, a juvenile Brown Goshawk that helpfully showed the longer middle toe and rounded tail that differentiate it from the smaller Collared Sparrowhawk in the long range photo I was able to grab as it perched on a snag across the river. To my delight I found what was very likely the same Short-beaked Echidna along the early section of track that passes through drier habitat a few more metres above the river. I didn't have it for long before it disappeared down the bank, but it did allow me this shot of it pretending to to be a fiercely lurking terror of the bush.




Once again it had to compete for sighting of the day with what must be the same female /juvenile combination of Superb Lyrebirds. They were outrageously approachable - the female emerging from some ferns virtually at my feet and foraging unconcerned within ten metres for the best part of an hour. Once again the female passed numerous food items to the juvenile, but I was only able to capture one exchange of what looks like part of an earthworm. Surprise of the day was the Red-bellied Black Snake which appeared almost under the nose of the juvenile bird before slipping silently away, leaving the juvenile in what is clearly a moment of pure "What the heck!" amazement.

More to come.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Royal National Park: Lady Carrington Drive, Forest Walk and Couranga Track
26 January 2023 Part II



The spot where the lyrebirds appeared is just south of the Jersey Spring, where water flows from the rocks and a sandstone trough was built in 1892 - originally to water the horses serving the carriageway. It is distinctive because the path passes left of a large outcrop and then opens out into a clearing, with a picnic table, that is surrounded by large trees. This was the birdiest spot of the day, with Green Catbird appearing on the ground, an Eastern shrike-Tit foraging above the path and a host of the usual suspects including Rufous Fantail, Black-faced Monarch, Eastern Yellow Robin, Lewin's Honeyeater, Eastern Whipbird and a male Green-backed Oriole.



A few minutes south of this clearing I found a Brown Cuckoo-dove perched quietly at eye level on the river side of the trail followed shortly after by the first of three Wonga Pigeons. It flushed across the river showing very uniform upperparts except for a row of white tips to the outer tail feathers and then helpfully landed in an open area on the far bank where I was able to gab a couple of dodgy record shots of its more distinctive front, complete with a white forecrown and a bold white double v on the dark grey breast. The second bird was still on the deck and, frustratingly, mostly obscured before it eventually panicked and flew off.



A few hundred metres further on the path crosses Buralga Brook, where a closer look at what I thought was another of the ten plus Black-faced Monarch revealed it to be the much rarer Spectacled Monarch, of which there are just six previous records on eBird in the Sydney area. The most distinctive feature is the broad black mask that extends back beyond the eye onto the ear coverts, with an orange malar patch extending up from the deep orange breast and neck, leaving a small black goatee beard. It also has a contrasting white belly and the lower two thirds of the uncertain is white - whereas Black-faced Monarch is grey around the head, orange from belly to vent and has a uniformly grey undertail. I followed the pix of the Spectacled with a couple of a male Black-faced from my previous visit to show the difference. This actually reflects the situation as there was at leat one male and one female Black-faced in the small feeding flock that held the Spectacled.




Other good birds included a fabulous full-tailed male Superb Lyrebird that disappeared without offering a shot and nicely confiding juvenile Bassian Thrush that was still too young to appreciate people were a potential threat and moved very slowly between the light and shadows as it watched me calmly from the path-side. Nothing the importance of the tail colour for separation from the very similar Russet-tailed Thrush its interesting to see how different the tail and the pale spots on the upperparts look in direct sunlight.



With time running out and the weather closing in I rushed round the Forest Walk adding an Australian King Parrot and four different Superb Lyrebirds plus a surprise Brown Antechinus whose rustling progression through a prickly palm caught me attention. Shortly thereafter I waded across the Hacking River and headed up the Couranga Track towards Waterfall station.



The highlights on this final section were a Pilotbird that flushed across the path and eventually crept back while never emerging from cover (here'a a pic from my first visit to Royal NP) , ten Red Wattlebirds and a Noisy Friarbird feeding on a couple of flowering Banksias as the rain came down, and the wonderland look of the bush as the skies cleared and bathed the ridge in evening sunshine as we dripped dry.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Central Coast Wetlands - The Entrance and Ourimbah Rest Stop
2 February 2023, Part I




Last Thursday I headed north to the Central Coast Wetlands, but rather than return to Pioneer Dairy I wanted to check out The Entrance - where Tuggerah Lake drains into the sea through a narrow and very sandy gap. This is known site where Little Terns breed, and I also had hopes of picking up Fairy Tern and some waders. I caught a train to Gosford and a 45 minute connecting bus (17X) that got me to The Entrance around 0900, but some ten minutes before arriving I was delighted to pick up a dozen or so White-throated Needletails feeding over the road (A49) as the bus passed the Carbeen Road Reserve.



The bus stops within 100 metres of the bridge (1) and after a quick look over the water on the Eastern side (2), where I could see a marked-off area or breeding terns and 60-odd loafing Silver Gulls I walked along the shore, under the bridge and birded Picnic Point (3)on the inner side of the peninsula. Good numbers of Pied and Little Pied Cormorants nest in the Norfolk pines immediately to the west of the bridge and right at the entrance of the park a smaller tree holds a number of Australian Darter nests.



Picnic Point looks out across Lake Tuggerah and the shallows on both sides of The Entrance held an impressive 300+ Black Swans 25-odd Australian Pelicans and 30 Chestnut Teals. There were also anumbers single Maned Duck and two Pacific Black Ducks, plus a couple of Masked Lapwings. I was more interested in the three Greater Crested Terns and a solitary Caspian Tern. There was no sign however of any smaller terns.



I was pleased to find my first Long-billed Corellas. Four birds feeding actively on the lawn by the boat ramp let me set up shop a couple of metres away and continued to pull up roots as I took in the fearsomely long mandible and the splashes of crimson on the neck sides and around the blue-wattled eye. Knowing that the Central Coast marks the southernmost limit of Torresian Crow in this part of New South Wales I took great pains to photograph a crow tat was investigating the fringes of the skatepark, and was a touch disappointed to conclusively prove - owing to the broad patch of bare black malar skin that it was Australian Raven, which I see every in Sydney.



Liking the look of the park's mix of open grassland and casuarinas I continued along the western edge of the park, finding a bare tree (4) that held a dozen White-breasted Woodswallows, and also received visits from an Olive-backed Oriole, a female Australian Figbird and a couple of hefty Black-faced Cuckooshrikes, plus an adult and dark-billed juvenile Dollarbird. The Woodswallows were typically delightful, soaring around on their stubby pointed wings to hunt dragonflies and huddling in tight packed groups on the branches in between. It was good to see a couple of white-browed juveniles with small white spots on the coverts and tertials. They were presumably rather recently fledged, as they still showed an extensive white gape.



More spectacular was the arrival of a flock of some 250 White-throated Needletails - presumably the same flock I'd glimpsed from the bus that had continued tracking up the coast. Some of them dropped down to feed over the casuarinas - whipping past at warp speed with effortlessly exhilarating control - while the majority motored steadily northward a couple of hundred metres up. I used to see them occasionally on migration in Hong Kong, but never in such numbers.

Having seen them in coastal casuarinas in Brisbane a few years ago I was hoping vaguely to find Striped Honeyeater here. I didn't, but only while writing this up did I realise that they are another species for which the Central Coast marks the southernmost limit of its range (a couple were seen here late in January). Others include the spectacular Regent Bowerbird, Spectacled Monarch, and Pied Butcherbird (which occasionally turns up in northern Sydney). What I did find were a female Olive-backed Oriole that was foraging low down in the casuarinas, and an immature male Grey Butcherbird that had developed the adult's dark cap, and also showed the white chin and throat that diagnostically differentiates it from Pied Butcherbird. A closer look reveals Its greater coverts are a mess, with evidence of broken shafts and big gaps that made me wonder if it might have escaped an encounter with a predator by the narrowest of margins.



My big highlight here was finding a party of six Eastern Rosellas feeding on the spiky little casuarina cones above a reed-filled pond (5), where a couple obvious next boxes suggest they may be breeding locally. They were not at all shy and I was delighted to have my closest views yet of this striking species that shows off array of clashing colours that might even give Gianni Versace pause for thought.



As I headed out of the park I enjoyed watching the gang of Australian Pelicans gathered round the two fishermen who were gutting their catch on the bare black by the slipway, a pair of Magpie-larks with their slightly scruffy youngster and four splendid Crested Pigeons. A long hot walk across the bridge and around the Little Tern breeding area on the sand spit (6) was saved from being a complete waste of time by the pair of Red-capped Plovers and their two-legged dandelion of a chick, and a distant view of an Australian Pied Oystercatcher on the rock platform on the other side of the river mouth.

I'll cover Ourimbah Rest Stop in the next post.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Central Coast Wetlands - The Entrance and Ourimbah Rest Area
2 February 2023, Part II



Ourimbah Rest Area is one of those weird sites with a rather confusing name. To be fair the rest stop is as described, a place where weary drivers can pull off the motorway and take a break. And while there are some birds that come into the fringes of the fenced-off area the majority of the birds are in fact on Ourimbah RTA Reserve that surrounds the rest stop to the north.



Getting here from The Entrance was a pain, on an unbelievably twisty turn No 25 or 26 bus (The Entrance to Wyong) that took an hour to get to Tuggerah where I walked under another highway to catch a 36 bus (Tuggerah to Gosford) to the petrol station near the rest stop 1 and walked under the motorway. I arrived at around 2pm and to the background of traffic on the highway I made my way round the Rest Area itself 2 picking up Eastern Yellow Robin, Lewin's Honeyeater, and Black-faced Monarch by peering through the fence, but the birding early got going when I found a gap next to the gate on the road heading east and started with ... Crested Bulbuls! It will take me a long time to love this Asian import! this road was initially hard work, with nowt but a Rufous Fantail to show for a good load of pishing along a few hundred metres of marshy edge. After a few hundred metres, and shortly after picking up a Bar-Shouldered Dove that flew up and perched nicely. I found a track that took me away from the highway 3 and into an area of actively managed marshy woodland with a decent track running through it.



My big find here and creating close competition with he Eastern Rosellas and While-breasted Wood Swallows for find of the day was an absolutely enormous grey-brown moth with the fattest abdomen I've ever seen on a moth. It turns out that Giant Wood Moth is the world's heaviest moth. Fat-bottomed females like this one can weigh in at a whopping 30 grams, which is the same weight as the top weight of Australian Pipit and heavier than most Rainbow Bee-eaters! I think it had just emerged from its pupa (just right of and below it on the trunk) after living for a couple years in a borehole inside the gum tree it was attached to.



Despite being a nice mix of creeks, billabongs, and well wooded swampy bottom land It was not hugely birdy, although I did find another or the same Bar-shouldered Dove, pished in a super-confiding immature Grey Fantail and a pair of Crimson-browed Finches, briefly got onto a flyover White-throated Needletail and a skulking Yellow-throated Scrubwren and was delighted to get reasonably close to an obviously curious Brown Cuckoo-dove and I added few other species as I walked through to the gate at the western end of the site 4 and then walked 1.5km south to Ourimbah station to begin my journey home.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Royal Botanic Garden
6 February 2023




A smash and grab raid to see if I could refind the Powerful Owl I photographed a few months back. It wasn't in the same tree but had moved around 50 metres to a taller tree, from where it stared briefly down at me before continuing, eyes closed, to contemplate the deep questions of existence.
A few other birds included this Grey Butcherbird making use of the ornate fountain for a quick wash and brush up, and a Magpie-Lark on the small pool in front of the restaurant. Other bits and pieces included a couple of Little Corellas, a flyover Channel-billed Cuckoo and a nice mix of plumages of Silver Gull. Starting with the youngest, this year's juvenile is the left-hand-most bird, two dark-eyed second year birds one with a mostly dark bill and both with all dark primaries above the juvenile and the upper right hand bird, and three adults with white irises, red bills, and white-windowed primaries.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Pitt Town Lagoon and Cemetery
7 February 2023



On Tuesday morning Rob Hynson kindly invited me to join him in a visit to Pitt Town Lagoon in pursuit of Australian Painted-snipe. The lagoon is an hour's drive northwest of the city centre and is the l natural drainage point for an area of farmland and a golf course that had attracted several hundred ducks and a host of other waterbirds. As you walk down from the grass carpark (1) to the hide (2) on the north shore the lagoon presents itself as a bunch of reed-fringed islands, some shallow muddy fringes surrounded by open farmland and big skies. The birds were mostly pretty distant so my pictures are distinctly "record shot" quality and not worth posting, but I enjoyed the range of wetland-dependent species. These included White-belied Sea Eagle perched up on a bare branch like an African Fish Eagle, a trio of Australian Pelicans that floated imperiously in, three different Yellow-billed Spoonbills and thirty-odd Royal Spoonbills, ten Great, one Little and three Cattle Egrets, a single Australasian Darter soaring in the distance and a solitary Australasian Grebe. The extensive reedbeds around the lake held a bunch of Australian Reed Warblers and Bright-capped Cisticolas, and the reeds around the open patch a little east of the hide (3) provided my best views yet of one of the three or four singing Little Grassbirds, a few Superb Fairy Wrens and half a dozen Crimson-browed Finches.

There were several hundred Grey and Chestnut Teals and amongst them three more NSW ticks - four female Australian Shovelers, four weird and handsome Pink-eared Ducks and a couple of distant and significantly larger low-in-the-water Australian Shelducks. 50+ Pied Stilts picked their way through the shallows, Masked Lapwings huddled on the far bank, two-Black-fronted Dotterels and a couple of Sharp-tailed Sandpipers added some migrant quality. The icing on the cake was a creeping black shadow in the reeds of one of the islands that Rob brilliantly turned into a Spotless Crake, and my fifth tick of the morning.

One of those five, depending on which taxonomy your follow, was my 200th bird since arriving in May last year. We had not a sniff of the Painted-snipe but as we made a final scan a soaring raptor exuding serious broad-winged eagle vibes eventually showed pale flashes on the upper wing and no real sense that it could be Wedgie, White-bellied or one of the kites, thereby leaving Little Eagle - which has a rather similar jizz to Booted Eagle - to as the only realistic option.



As the Eagle was flying over the far side we drove over with the hope of getting closer views, but did not connect, although we did find both Peregrine and Nankeen Kestrel close to a large field that had been turned over to cultivating lotus (4)- an ideal habitat for daytime roosting Painted-snipes in Asia! If I lived any close I would certainly check it out before dawn or after dusk to see if any birds can be seen or heard displaying...

Our next stop was Pitt Town Anglican Cemetery (5), which is tucked into he woods on the edge of Scheyville National Park, where we added a nice suite of woodland species. These included my first Jacky Winter and Peaceful Dove - the former fly-catching from fenceposts and low branches while the latter pottered sedately on the deck before zipping away into cover. Other good birds here included sining White-throated Gerygone, which we did not see, Yellow Thornbill, a family party of three or four Dusky Woodswallows, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, a couple of Mistletoebirds and two Sacred Kingfishers, one wow which was mugged by a Welcome Swallow as it tried to fish in the small pond nearby. In the end we wrapped up around noon on a pretty hot day, leaving me more than satisfied with eight new species.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Photospot: White-throated Needletail
Cremorne Point, 30 December 2022

After spending a disappointing day trying to keep my optics dry as I sea watched from Shelly Beach Carpark in Manly for a solid seven hours and failing to see anything interesting except for lots and lots and lots and lots of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters - only to read from eBird that another birder had gone out for a casual hour in the evening sunshine and picked up four Flesh-footed Shearwaters! So I'm cheering myself with this shot of a White-throated Needletail in the act of catching a flying insect that at the time I had no idea I'd taken! One of my favourite shots of 2022.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Scheyville National Park
21 February 2023


Having flirted with the edges of Scheyville National Park when I visited Pitt Town Lagoon with Rob Hynson a couple of weeks ago a check on eBird revealed that there were plenty of potential additions to my Aussie list here. As you can see from the map its a funny sort of a National park - with a mix of dense woodland, cleared areas and residential developments on large plots of land - very different from the wilderness feeling of Royal or Ku-ring-gai National Parks, let alone the Blue Mountains.

My basic plan was to walk from north to south through as much of the good-looking habitat as possible - starting from the point where Longneck Lagoon abuts the road from Mulgrave to Cattai (1). As I stepped out of the car I almost trod on a freshly road-killed Wild Boar and recovering from this unexpected close encounter immediately started seeing birds on the pond just across the road. These included eight Bar-shouldered Doves searching for scraps around a lone Black Angus cow, a bunch of Fairy Martins and Tree Swallows hawking over the pond behind it, and two female / immature Satin Bowerbirds chasing each other through the trees on the hedge-line. A couple of Great Egrets flew over and landed on the lagoon, here I also picked up an immature Australian Darter, three Grey Teals and seven Chestnut Teals as I peered between the casuarinas.



The trees became birdier as I reached the southern tip of the lagoon (2) and the habitat opened up as some wonderfully gnarly old paperbarks and open patches of grassland and eucalyptus broke up the rather dismal darkness of the close-packed casuarinas. Among the typical woodland birds - Eastern Yellow Robins, Grey Fantails, Golden and Rufous Whistlers, Grey Shrike-thrushes, Superb Fairy Wrens, White-throated Treecreepers, Silvereyes, and Crimson-browed Finches were several Yellow Thornbills, a couple of Noisy Friarbirds and three different Dollarbirds. I was disappointed to hear no Australian Reed Warblers or Grassbirds in the reedbeds but did add six more Great Egrets, a pair of Australasian Grebes, a White-faced Heron, two Dusky Moorhens and four Pacific Black Ducks on the water.


As I came back up the eastern side the path took me into the grounds of an environmental education centre where a family party of Noisy Friarbirds party was playing the fool and, much to my surprise, catching cicadas. I initially thought they were Black-faced Cuckooshrikes, but since every bird almost fell forward off its branch as it landed and hung upside down before righting itself I eventually figured out what they were.

 

[MKinHK]

Scheyville National Park
21 February 2023, Part II

Having lost my text a couple of times through a dropped signal here's my third effort ... starting with a Spangled Drongo that was hanging out with the Noisy Friarbirds.



As I headed along the education centre access road I ran into a treetopping group of nuthatch-like Varied Sitellas. They went through way too high for a photo but showing the typical short tailed, big-headed, bull-necked nuthatch shape. At the end of the road (4) four red-masked Musk Lorikeets landed in one of the large trees in a grassy paddock, which also held half a dozen chatty Eastern Rosellas. On the grass below I found my first NSW tick of the day - a female Common Bronzewing, which looks like a dusty brown turtle dove with iridescent green wing coverts, a pale fore crown and tapering white eyestripe like a bit like an Inca Tern.

One paddock further (5) on two Dusky Woodswallows were hawking from overhead wires and, even better, a female Restless Flycatcher - black above and white below with an ochre gorget - was noisily debating ownership of the airspace with a female Leaden Flycatcher. Dryland honeyeaters also enjoying the big trees included the numerically dominant Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, the rather plain Fuscous Honeyeater and the petite, elegant White-plumed Honeyeater, which sported white tabs either side of a pale lemon head. I was pleased to connect with these last two as I had only seen them once previously at Duckholes trail in Kur-ing-gai Chase NP and Landing Lights in SE Sydney respectively.



The real highlight of the day was finding an area of low shrub with pale yellow flowers just off the corner of Avondale Rd where it turns west (7) that was playing host to a wonderfully confiding quartet of Scarlet Myzomelas and a couple of Eastern Spinebills. While the Spinebills are common enough and pish in readily all my previous Myzomelas have been of singing birds in distant treetops. So to enjoy a full 20 minutes with several birds feeding completely unconcerned either at or below eye level was a wonderful experience.



Other bits and pieces on the day included two different pairs of the ever wonderful Double-barred Finch, a flyover Wedge-tailed Eagle, several Mistletoebirds another female Leaden Flycatcher and a fair amount of long hot gaps (6, 8-9) without too many birds. I did also have one other thornbill species with a white iris, paler bill and pale super, but never got enough to confirm it as the Weebill I was hoping for before finally succumbing to the heat of the day at Oakville Harvest farm store (which has excellent value cold fresh juices) at the southern edge of the reserve (10). The full eBird list is here.

Cheers
Mike

 

[foresttwitcher]

Having lost my text a couple of times through a dropped signal here's my third effort ...

Ahh, I know that feeling only too well...

 

[MKinHK]

Central Coast Wetlands - Macpherson's Swamp, Wyong Milk Factory and Pioneer Dairy
26 February 2023



Hearing about a family party of Black-necked Storks that had been touring the area for a couple of days I headed back north to the Central Coast. As soon as I arrived at Macpherson's Swamp it was immediately apparent that they were not here. The best birds here were 20 or so Hardheads, Australia's only regular Aythya and a small flock of Long-billed and Little Corellas feeding on sweetgum seeds and grass roots in the grounds of a church built on stilts. Given the common pattern of bill shape being a key differentiator of food sources I was interested that despite the dramatically different shapes of their bills both species were feeding on the same things. I was again disappointed that the corvids I looked at were all Australian Ravens and I couldn't string any of them into Torresian Crows.




A carload of birders also up from Sydney kindly offered me a lift to the stretch of river behind the Wyong Milk Factory which is a stakeout for Azure Kingfisher. They didn't show, and we were left with a couple of Little Pied Cormorants, two Pacific Black Ducks, an Australian Darter, and this rather elegant skink sp. I was completely taken in by the look and smell of some freshly-baked donuts at the next-door, which I regretted almost immediately.



Our next stop was Pioneer Dairy on what had become a pretty hot morning. There was once again no sign of the storks, but we did pick up a Little Grassbird on the reedy fringe in front of the pergola, while the usual suspects were on view across the lagoon. Two of the dozen or so Australasian Swamphens had a near full-grown chick that was feeding with them on the floating vegetation in the creek.



I enjoyed watching an Australian Raven carrying golf balls from the driving range to the Moreton Bay Fig near the old grain silos and noted a Royal Spoonbill among the Cattle Egrets out on the mud. Australian Reed Warblers and Tawny Grassbirds showed in the damper areas, but I had no joy with the Southern Emuwren that was my other reason for coming up this way. a couple of scaly-breasted juvenile Sacred Kingfishers hunting from a fence line offered a little relief from the heat, as did a male Pied Butcherbird, a Brown Falcon and a juvenile Pacific Koel begging from a Red Wattlebird in the trees along the creek towards the railway line.



A brief return to Macpherson Swamp to see if the storks had dropped in produced nothing except to see that the Hardheads had moved on an an Australasian Grebe was foraging among the Dusky Moorhens among the lily pads before making the 2.5 hr journey back to Sydney from Wyong station.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Blue Mountains National Park :
Woodford Creek Catchment
2 March 2023



As I'd enjoyed my previous visit to Woodford Creek in December I was happy to come back for another go. Its about 2 hours by train from downtown Sydney to Woodford Station (1) and from there I crossed the highway and headed left before turning north onto Woodford Avenue, which continues into the National Park along the L3 Fire trail (3).



A quick pish by the gate immediately summoned some of the usual suspects - a small gang of Variegated Fairywrens, two Eastern Yellow Robins two brown-throated juvenile Eastern Spinebills being the first to arrive. A flicker in the treetops turned out to be the first of three Shining Bronze Cuckoos. Unfortunately they were not curious enough to come down from the treetops, but I was at least able to see they lacked the rufous-edged tail and the black eyestripe and ear coverts of the similar Horsfield's Bronze Cuckoo and, with the record shots below, the all-green cap thatI believe identified them as the migratory race lucidus that breeds in Tasmania and New Zealand, and moves north into Eastern Australia for the winter.



As I walked along the ridge a Red Wattlebird and a couple of Rufous Whistlers enlivened a quiet spell before I dropped into a hanging valley I'd thought looked good right at the end of my last visit (5) . It's a really attractive spot with a marsh on one side and a fine stand of grey and yellow Scribbly Gums on the other. A couple of Crimson Rosellas had dropped into the little stream emerging out of the marsh. I enjoyed watching one waddling along the path and munching on dandelion seeds, and another sat in a paperbark, showing its pale blue outer-tail feathers to perfection.



More to come

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Blue Mountains National Park:
Woodford Creek Catchment
2 March 2023, Part II



Three small waterfalls - Mabel, Edith and Hazel - tumble over the sandstone ridge in three nearby spots. None of them are particularly specular but its always nice to enjoy the cool air and shade around them, and to fill up my magic Berkey water bottle. This has a filter than means I can fill it from pretty much any source and be safe from bacteria, viruses and other nasties - without having to carry all the water I'll be drinking for the whole day. Since I'll drink 3-4 litres on a typical birding day the bottle reduces the weight I carry by 3-4 kilos. I generally get at least an arm and sometimes much more of me soaked when filling the bottle from a waterfall but I do prefer to fill it with running water, and generally its hot enough that I dry off pretty quickly. Nearby birds included a fine male Golden Whistler a confiding Large-billed Scrubwren and this juvenile Eastern Spinebill. Some insects are just too good to ignore - this Sydney Spotted Darner posed beautifully for a few seconds at the viewpoint for the second falls.



More to come

Cheers
Mike

 

[Neil]

Glad to see this thread Mike.

 

[MKinHK]

Blue Mountains National Park:
Woodford Creek Catchment
2 March 2023, Part III
As I moved on from the area of the waterfalls I flushed a Common Bronzewing from beside the trail, and then headed northward along the fire trail that runs along the western edge of Woodford Reservoir (7) towards Woodford Dam. This area is not covered on the map for this visit as I've already shown it on the map for my previous visit (NB on that map the orientation is North to South) between points 5 and 4.



This section was much less productive than my previous visits, but I did get very nice views of a fourth Shining Bronze Cuckoo and a couple of small groups of Red-browed Treecreepers, which were much more elusive on my last visit. The drabber juvenile showed no red on the face and lacks the distinctive dark-edged belly streaks. It took a little more sorting out, but is not really confusable with either white-throated or the extralimital Brown Treecreeper.



Other bits and pieces included two common small passerines - Brown Gerygone and the streaky-breasted Brown Thornbill. These pix also provide a nice comparison with the larger and longer-tailed Large-billed Scrubwren, which has a distinctive all-dark eye, no streaming , and a significantly longer tail.



Continuing my good record with this species I also got pretty close to a Fantailed Cuckoo, some Crimson-browed Finches, one of which was a plain-faced juvenile, posed nicely, and and a nicely pishable party of White-cheeked Honeyeaters came close without ever offering a decent background to photograph them in.



As I head back southwards Hazelbrook railway station and climbed back up to the ridge that would take me to the railway station (10) I had no idea I was in for a grandstand finish as the L5 Firetrail turned into Clearview Parade (8) - where a lovely pair of Leaden Flycatchers hunted from some roadside wires.


Even better - a pair of my first ever Glossy Black Cockatoos fed with complete disregard for my presence in a small casuarina giving the most unbelievable point blank views! It was an absolute privilege to spend a good half hour walking round the tree and enjoying the yellow-collared female and "black is the new black" male in the beautiful early evening sunshine.




Cheers
Mike

 

[foresttwitcher]

Again ... love the scene setting landscape shots.

 

[MKinHK]

Warriewood Wetlands and Irrawong Reserve
19 March 2023



An early misty morning start at Warriewood was rewarded with the best bird of the day - an adult male Black Bittern flying over the shopping centre as I headed for the boardwalk on the southwest side of the reserve. Here I found a Royal Spoonbill perched on the far end and a couple of Australasian Swamphens tightroping their way along the railings and walking right up to me. A Little Pied Cormorant also decided that I was not scary enough to be moving for. Pacific Black Ducks had obviously had a successful breeding season, and a couple of Australian King Parrots caught my attention in the treetops to the usual pinging sound track of Bell Miners.


As I neared the far end of the boardwalk I met long-time local birder and uber photographer John Taylor. Together we walked up trough the Irrawong reserve to the beautiful waterfall (point 4 on my map from my visit in November 2022)



More to come

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Warriewood Wetlands and Irrawong Reserve
19 March 2023 Part II

The walk up to the Irrawong waterfall produced the expected range of woodland species, among which a juvenile Rufous Fantail and a Sacred Kingfisher perched above the waterfall were the highlights. A female-type Black Bittern disappeared to fast to be really enjoyed, and I soon headed south along the more eastern of the two boardwalks. In the heat of the day there was not too much on show and the highlights turned out to be two dragonflies - a hefty Blue-spotted Hawker and a svelte Common Flatwing. I like the way the in-focus area of the railing it is perched on shows how narrow the depth of field is.



I was surprised to find a colony of Grey-faced Flying Foxes in the trees at the southern end of the boardwalk. This is the commonest bat species in Sydney, and we see them in flight on most evening dog walks, but it was nice get good views of them hanging out in a variety of poses in excellent light here.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Long Reef Aquatic Reserve and Golf Course
20 March 2023



Having pulled out of continuing on from Warriewood to Long Reef as temperatures climbed into the 30s the day before, I took advantage of another afternoon low tide to get out to the end of the rock platform. On the way out a Hardhead was on one of the golf course ponds along with a pair of Australasian Grebes and 100+ Little Corellas and, absolutely wonderfully, a female Nankeen Kestrel hung motionless just five or six metres directly overhead as it rode the southerly wind spilling up over the edge of the cliff.



As I headed out across the exposed reef some 70 Red-necked Stints were puttering about among the rock pools and a 100 or so Crested Terns and 20 Silver Gulls were loafing at the northern edge, taking what little shelter the elevated rocks at the very tip provided. Finding as much shelter from the wind as I could I spent most of the next three hours staring hopefully out to sea. Despite the fresh southerlies a small passage . Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were pretty much the only true seabirds. One of these - a dark phase Wedge-tailed Shearwater with a distinctive pale belly patch -had me wondering what on earth it was. But the video showed the distinctive flight jizz of a Wedgie, and in truth it flew no different than the thirty or so other birds that went past. If you want to see the belly the best bet is to play it on your TV, or you can simply look at the dodgy pix below, which show a regular bird on the right and the pale-bellied bird on the left.



There were also a couple of Australian Gannets, but the most interesting action was seeing at least three Crested Terns returning to the rocks with Threadtail Leatherjackets they'd obviously caught nearby. They attracted the attention of both the Silver Gulls and a family party of six Australian Ravens, the young birds lacking the distinctive pale iris of their parents. One of the Silver Gulls also had a tilt at my lunch and hung around at close quarters before sloping off to try his luck elsewhere.



In addition to the Red-necked Stints other waders included a couple of Grey-tailed Tattlers and eleven each of Pacific Golden Plover and Ruddy Turnstone. On my final look back from the top of the cliff I scored a new personal record of 12 Sooty Oystercatchers and an Osprey dropped briefly into one of the rock pools.

Cheers
Mike

 

[3Italianbirders]

Oh, my! I hadn’t visited this thread for a while, but now I have to go back and see what I have missed! Mind-blowing photos, Mike! I especially liked the Echidna, the White-breasted Woodswallows, the Powerful Owl, the Crimson Rosella, the Leaden Flycatcher, and the last image of the Silver Gull! Great stuff!