Exploring Sydney - and further afield. (2 Viewers)

[MKinHK]

Thanks 3IB! I continue to enjoy getting to grips with the birding here.

Belrose to Narrabeen on the Slippery Dip Trail
26 March 2023



I've been wanting to explore Gadigal National Park for a while, and last Sunday I took a 193 bus from Warringah Mall to the Belrose Uniting Church (1) and started walking down Morgan Avenue to the beginning of the Slippery Dip Trail (2). This first section produced a nice flyover flock of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos and a couple of Olive-backed Orioles. On the way I passed a stables with a hidden pond that was doubtless the attraction for 20-odd Maned Ducks, a Magpie-Lark and a couple of pics of Masked Lapwings. I also picked up the softly rippling winter call of a Fat-tailed Cuckoo behind the typically strident notes of the much closer Eastern Whipbird.



The majority of this evocatively-named trail belies its name by running for most of its length along a rather dry sandstone ridge. This is not an especially birdy habitat, but with some of the wattle trees starting to flower I did pick up small numbers of Little and Red Wattlebirds, two Noisy Friarbirds, a couple of Eastern Spinebills and New Holland, Lewin's, White-cheeked and White-eared Honeyeaters. It was the latter that performed the best - with a couple of birds showing nicely at the spot where the title image was taken.



Much of the walk walk however disturbed by the noise of model planes flying from their little airfield at (3), and the trail from there to the high point at (5) was churned up by heavy equipment that had recently replaced the power lines. And somehow the disturbance continued as the track from (50 to (6) turned out to be part of a mountain biking course, complete with jumping ramps and names like Rampage and King Brown Alley. Hmmm. I did find a little more tranquility once I got to Deep Creek and headed east along the creek through some nice forest and flood meadows to (7) where I ran out time and turned round, but not before having great views of a nice adult Brown Cuckoo Dove and damp forest species such as Golden Whistler, Eastern Yellow Robin, and Rufous Fantail. The only other bird of note was a Grey Butcherbird that posed nicely in the park along the edge of Narrabeen Lagoon. Other bits and pieces included 20 Pacific Black Ducks, a Coot and a couple of Dusky Moorhens in the forest pool next to the bridge across the creek, a small group of Little Pied Cormorants hunched in a tree and an Eastern Osprey that flew over the road as I waited for my bus home.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

I've been sadly remiss in posting following an April that turned out to be a bit of a struggle birdingwise. Either the birds did not perform or my pix were disappointing or I don't know At least it seemed that way at the time. But as I start putting my thoughts to posting I realise that I haven't done at all badly and have had the necessary word with myself.

First up an evening outing with Sydney stalwarts Murray and Chris to look for night birds and mammals produced brief views of a Long-nosed Bandicoot and a Brush-tailed Possum, plus two different Tawny Frogmouths and best of all my lifer Australian Owlet-Nightjar. The latter is a bird I've searched for in every tree hole I see without the slightest hint of success, so to have Murray find it with his night sight and vector us in on it as it sat on a branch and called around us made for a memorable evening. The pix aren't great, but they do lay down a first marker for a charismatic species I very much hope to see more of.



For the sake of completeness I've also included a Tawny Frogmouth shot with my iPhone on an evening dog walk close to home on Cremorne Point that looked exactly how a frogmouth turned into a surveillance camera would look!


While I managed no shot of the bandicoot here's a couple more of my resident possums - Brush-tailed and Ring-tailed, both also captured by phone during the evening dog walk, and a small tribute to Dame Edna Everidge who passed away recently, and who's greeting to her TV audiences was "Hello, possums".



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Birding became a little more challenging in April as I had three dips in a row over the course of six days . The worst was an eight hour round trip to the Hunter Valley for a Regent Honeyeater that appeared for several days before and the day after, but declined to feed at a patch of flowering banksias up at Kurri Kurri on the day I went up. I did pick up 38 species despite the dip, although the burned-out car at the entrance to the reserve should have been a sign of the car-wreck this twitch was to become. I did pick up my best ever shots of Yellow-tufted Honeyeater and Leaden Flycatcher.





I also dipped twice on an Australian Spotted Crake and a late-staying Latham's Snipe at Mason Park at the southernmost corner of Sydney Olympic Park.

Sydney Olympic Park:
Mason Park & Waterbird Sanctuary
8 & 14 April 2023



I've visited SOP a couple of other times previously - in July 2022 and January 2023. The second of these has a map of the park, which unfortunately doesn't quite reach far enough south to show Mason Park. So here's a map (that has been rotated 90degrees anticlockwise) showing how Mason Park at the southernmost corner of SOP connects to the rest. On both occasions I got bus 525 (or 526) from Strathfield train station to the edge of the sports field in Mason Park (1) - its a 15 minute ride.



While Mason Park was a nice place and I did see a Pink-eared Duck that is unusual this far into the city I never got a sniff of the crake or the snipe. A White-plumed Honeyeater was a first for the eBird site list on my first visit , and 27 Cattle Egrets - presumably migrants - was also a site record. Other than these the site was - despite the dippage - pretty birdy. Waterbirds included 30-odd Chestnut Teals, 20 Black-necked Stilts, two pairs of Black Swans, three or four Australian Ibis, a couple of White-faced Herons and single Great and Little Egrets and a Royal Spoonbill, as well as two Black-fronted Dotterels, a family of Australasian Grebes, and an Australasian Darter seemed to enjoy flying the occasional loop overhead. Other good birds on my second visit included a couple of Musk Lorikeets in a riverside gum tree and a Little Grassbird making its way through the line of tussocks in the middle of the marsh, and a flight of five Little Corellas provided a low-key flyby.



As the day closed and the gathering darkness cast beautiful patterns across the water four Black-necked Stilts fed close to the walkway, providing wonderful views and a photo-op I couldn't quite capture. I did enjoy one obstreperous Stilt decide to dunk one of the others for no discernible reason., precipitating a brief squabble before tranquility returned. Just for fun here's there more DIY dunkers from the same visits.



While dipping the crake and snipe was disappointing I did connect with another species that was high on my most wanted list - Red-kneed Dotterel. I found the bird on the small island in the middle of the island at the southern end of the waterbird sanctuary, and while it was always distant I was able to grab a couple of record shots and compare it with a Black-fronted Dotterel that was wandering around the same area. Record shots don't get much more record-y than this, but at least it gives a good idea of the typical range of species here.


I was also pleased to finally get a half decent shot of a Yellow Thornbill. This is a common enough species I've seen in a number of sites, but it has the infuriating ability to put foliage between itself and me, or move at the critical moment. The other good birds here were an impressively massive Caspian Tern and an adult White-bellied Sea Eagle that drifted imperiously over before claiming its tribute in the form of an unfortunate Dusky Moorhen. I also enjoyed the close views of a White-faced Heron foraging among the purple salt marsh.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Richmond Lowlands:
Windsor Churchyard and Turf Farm and Pugh's Lagoon
18 April 2023



Hot on the heels of connecting with the Red-kneed Dotterel I was inspired by the report of Banded Lapwing at a well-known site on the Windsor turf farms in the Richmond Lowlands (4), and of a bird I'm surprised I haven't previously seen since arriving in Sydney - Nankeen Night Heron, that was being seen at Pugh's Lagoon (5) near, Richmond, which is just a few kilometres to the NW of Windsor. I've seen both species on earlier visits to Australia - Banded Lapwing in Tasmania, and Nankeen Night Heron at Port Fairy in the far south of Victoria, in Brisbane and Kakadu National Park in the far north of the Northern Territory. I've shown these sites on a map with Pitt Town Lagoon, and the top and bottom ends of Scheville National Park, which I've birded on previous visits.




More to come

 

[MKinHK]

I arrived at Windsor Station (1 on the second map) after a 90-odd minutes train journey from downtown Sydney and walked along the southern edge of the evocatively named Don't Worry Oval and turned left into Cornwallis Road, that runs down to the turf fields, at the rather imposing-looking St Matthew's Anglican Church. A movement in the churchyard proved to be a party of four Red-rumped Parrots including two males in glorious breeding plumage. They were feeding on grass seeds and perching up on the time-weathered headstones and the fences around the larger graves.






I finally tore myself away and continued downhill towards the spot where the Banded Lapwing had been seen. On the way I was hijacked by a pond (3) filled with over 150 Coots and Dusky Moorhens, a couple of Australasian Grebes, a few Pacific Black Ducks and Chestnut Teals, plus two splendid Hardheads which showed to perfection in the morning sunshine - although both of these pix are of the same bird. I reckon the Coot in the second pic fancies him.



I finally dragged myself away from the pond, crossed a bridge and within 100 metres had found the field where the Banded Lapwing had been seen. I was initially confused as there seemed to be lots of distant birds with pale faces and dark breast bands, and wondered a) why are there so many and b) could they be Magpie Larks before realising the there really were 12 Banded Lapwings where there had only been one the day before. Big result! I only managed to get ten of them in a single shot and eventually one came close enough to appreciate in all its glory.




Cheers
Mike

 

[Frank van Drogen]

Awesome picture Mike -- especially love the Banded Lapwing!

 

[MKinHK]

Many thanks Frank. I spent some time waiting for the birds to come closer. It was about 50 metres away at this point, and then turned round and headed off across the field in the other direction. Like the Red-kneed Dotterel in my previous outing to Sydney Olympic Park I look forward to getting closer sometime soon.


Richmond (No. 5 on map 1) is a short five minute train ride from Windsor. So, since the heat was building g by the time I'd had my fill of the Banded Lapwings I chickened out of an 11km walk through the lowlands to Pugh's Lagoon where the Nankeen Night Herons had been seen, I hopped back on the train and made my way westwards from Richmond Station (1 on this map) along the highstreet and dropped off the ridge that protected the town from inundation in this highly flood-prone area to Pugh's Lagoon (2).

I was happy to have specific directions to where the Nankeen Night Herons were resting from Sue - a fellow poster on the Cumberland Bird Observers Club Facebook page with whom I enjoyed the Banded Lapwings at Windsor Turf. This meant that when I got to the Lagoon I went right over the to far end of the left hand arm of the lagoon and was delighted to find three birds, one of which - a fine adult - showed nicely close to the water's edge, while two others lurked deeper in cover.


Other birds here included three Azure Kingfishers that made excellent use of the airspace just above the water to ping noisily about, an Australasian Grebe that drifted by and allowed me my first frame-filling shot of this species. I enjoyed nice views of a White-plumed Honeyeater feeding amongst the foliage of low-hanging branch, and to wrap up my best ever day for non-native species that had thus far included Eurasian Goldfinch (by the pond in Windsor) , Blackbird, Spotted Dove, Common Myna, Eurasian Starling and this confiding male House Sparrow.




The e-Bird lists for the day can be found here (Windsor) and here (Pugh's Lagoon)

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Palmdale and Ourimbah
28 April 2023





Two weeks ago I enjoyed one of my best days birding in Sydney. Following birding the Palmdale valley before walking out around the back of the Ourimbah wetland below the famous (at least for birders) Ourimbah Rest Area. I was in hot pursuit of Regent Bowerbird - a truly spectacular eastern forest specialist whose range reaches as far south as Gosford, but has only been recorded any closer to Sydney just a handful of times. Ourimbah Rest stop is the traditional site, but its not the nicest spot as there is a constant wall of traffic noise and the records are sporadic.

I started seeing small groups of Topknot Pigeons as the train passed Lisarow and as I waited opposite Ourimbah station (2km left from No 1) for the uber to drop me at the eastern end of Palmdale Road (2). A couple of Eastern Rosellas flew up from the tree-lined avenue into the broad meadow on the left and a pish at the first point the stream came alongside the road brought in the usual first responders - Superb Fairy Wrens, White-browed Scrubwrens and a couple of Lewin's Honeyeaters, one of which posed beautifully. Even better was to come as I passed the cafe at the main entrance to the funeral gardens a slender tawny brown bird flew overhead the road and onto a bare branch - a female Regent Bowerbird! A closer look showed a white-spotted back and fine black bars on the underparts, and a black nape, crown and gorget. Even better, as the mixed flock of a dozen Satin Bowerbirds and six more Regent Bowerbirds that included two magnificent gold and black males.



More to come

Cheers
Mike

 

[foresttwitcher]

Wow, the male is a looker!

 

[MKinHK]

Palmdale Valley, Ourimbah
28 April 2023 Part II

They certainly are Pete, and to be honest I was frustrated that neither of them really hung around, but moved through high up with the bigger group of Satin Bowerbirds. I'll certainly go back. And these rather brief views were why the stunning bird failed to claim the bird of the day prize. This was claimed by the pristine male and female White-headed Pigeons that were feeding on the exuberantly fruiting privet bush just below the bare branches of the bowerbird expressway. The views were so close I was able to see the metallic green sheen across the upper back on both male and female birds.




Having confirmed the success of the day in the first hour or so I headed on up Palmdale Road, flushing a couple of Spotted Doves and a pair of Brown Quails from one roadside field and finding a fine pair of adult male Pied Butcherbirds in another before taking a left next to a large lotus-covered pond surrounded by large trees (4) and heading up Fern Tree Lane and finding a couple of pairs of Australian King Parrots, two Yellow-throated Scrubwrens and an Eastern Whipbird in the hedge of a field that held several alpacas and across from another where a venerable-looking pair of donkeys appeared to be enjoying gracious retirement and a quartet of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos flew over.




I also chatted to a bloke on an assault-standard golf buggy whose driveway was so long it required the buggy for him to come down to the road to collect his mail. On the way back down a Willie Wagtail was disembowelling a butterfly in the middle of the road, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and Little Corellas loafed in one large tree and a couple of Topknot Pigeons were feeding in a large tree that was heaving with fruit.




The valley starts to narrow here and in places the forest comes right down to and even spans both sides of the road. One such patch delivered my first Brown Cuckoo-dove of the day, while a soft call in the bottom of the next produced a typically confiding Bassian Thrush and to the pinging soundtrack of Bell Miners, a fine Wonga Pigeon that posed nicely at eye level before remembering itself and rocketing away at high speed.



More to come ...

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Palmdale Valley, Ourimbah
28 April 2023, Part III



After failing to find the Gang-gangs reported in the autumnally gold and red sweet gums at the top end of the road I was surprised to find a Wonga Pigeon foraging on the grass verge as I walked back downhill as all my previous birds have all been hiding deep in the forest. Unfortunately the light was not great but I did enjoy the series I got as a car came along the road and flushed it.



A little further down another skulker - a Yellow-throated Scrubwren - was hopping about in the middle of the road delivering another frustratingly grainy image at the same spot where the first Brown Cuckoo Dove had appeared, and an open field nearby hosted a Grey Butcherbird that had posed helpfully close to a Laughing Kookaburra for a helpful size comparison.





On the corner of Tooby's Creek Lane I provided some small amusement for a bunch of judgey-looking alpacas as the first of several groups of Topknot Pigeons flew over and landed in some trees across the creek. I counted over 70 birds and several other small flocks were flying about and I eventually found a gathering of another 60 birds and 20-odd White-headed Pigeons feeding on a a line of camphor trees.



This lower portion of the valley also held an 18-strong flock of non-breeding Cattle Egrets that were hanging out with a mixed herd of Hereford and Friesian cows, and 15 Straw-necked Ibises and a dilapidated old truck in the paddock where I turned south toward Ourimbah. Continuing the agricultural theme the field next door to that held a pair of Crested Pigeons and a flyover Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo and the next one to that the final farmyard animal in the shape of a bunch of sheep. I somehow failed to photograph any of the horses that completed the domestic animal set.




The highlights of the walk along the road to Ourimbah were a splendid gathering of six Brown Cuckoo Doves on another privet hedge, plus a couple of Australian King Parrots a mixed flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos with Long-billed and Little Corellas, one more each of Wonga and White-headed Pigeons. At the very end of the road a Bar-shouldered Dove that plonked itself down in the middle of the road and a lovely trio of Galahs that added a wonderful splash of colour to the end of a wonderful day's birding.


Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Long Reef Aquatic Reserve
2 May 2023

A low tide visit to Long Reef started well as soon as I got off the bus. A pair of Red Wattlebirds allowed close approach in the along the top of the golf course and a Laughing Kookaburra absolutely glowed in the ethereally beautiful light in the surf club car park.



Out on the reef I enjoyed getting reacquainted with three Double-banded Plovers that had migrated up to winter here - and was intrigued how much the passage of a cloud overhead changed the light. Like the fifty-odd Red-necked Stints the plovers were were happy enough to come in close as they foraged on the pools left behind by the receding tide, but the two Grey-tailed Tattlers and three or four Ruddy Turnstones maintained a respectful distance.

 

[MKinHK]

Long Reef Aquatic Reserve
2 May 2023 Part II

I always enjoy the roost of Silver Gulls, Crested Terns and various cormorants (represented on this day by four Pied Cormorants and single Little Black and Little Pied Cormorants on the reef. By approaching with care none of the birds were flushed, and with the regular comings and goings some birds - especially the Crested Terns - flew right by me and reminding me how very little I know about birds in flight photography. Nonetheless I had a lot of fun trying! Its also fun trying to make a shot of the birds that drop into the shallow water to wash.



I have nothing whatsoever to say about this exceptionally rude Crested Tern that cunningly transformed its elegant wong folding origami into an unnecessarily rude gesture, but others of the same flock of 40-odd birds were a good deal friendlier.

Another bird in need to etiquette training was this Ruddy Turnstone that was picking for testy morsels in a recently deposited Silver Gull dropping. UK birders of my generation won't be the least surprised, as a 30-odd year old paper reported a Ruddy Turnstone in the UK finding plenty to enjoy in a discarded condom!

One of the Pied Cormorants was very much the outrageous poseur - waving his wings about to grab the attention of the student groups on the end of the point, but also provided a couple of nice fly-bys, while a Little Pied Cormorant perched alone on a rock against the usual wonderful backdrop of the waves which rise higher than my height before crashing and foaming onto the edge o the rock platform. I also enjoyed an Osprey that gave a close fly-by before dropping down to wash just a bit further away than I could usefully photograph.



Cheers
Mike

 

[Jos Stratford]

These posts are always a mouthwatering dip into the wonders of Oz 👍

Maybe a good idea to collate all your excellent site maps into a single resource - you could do like John Cantelo has done for Spain

 

[MKinHK]

Thanks Jos.

I have indeed been considering some for of quick reference page based on a larger map of the whole area covered, and re-branding this thread as "Birding Sydney by public transport". Your suggestion is a useful nudge to extract a digit and start work!

Cheers
Mike

 

[THE_FERN]

Maybe a good idea to collate all your excellent site maps into a single resource - you could do like John Cantelo has done for Spain

Is it called Opus?

 

[MKinHK]

Mt Annan Botanic Gardens
13 May 2023



Having heard the day before that the critically endangered Swift Parrot had been seen at Mt Annan Botanic Gardens I took the T8 train from Wynyard to Macarthur, and the B896 bus to the NE entrance of the Botanic Gardens (1) about 2 hours later.



This is a predominantly open, dry country grassland habitat with eucalypts along the creek lines, and the first stand I came (2) to held a couple of Galahs prospecting a nesting hole in a fine old eucalypt with peeling red bark.



There were also a small group of Red-rumped Parrots, two Rainbow Lorikeets on a snag that refused to turn round, a couple of Common Mynas and, best of all, a male Striated Pardalote showing the distinctive yellow supercilium and plain olive back that separates it from the much commoner Spotted Pardalote.




A little further on a small lake held a winter-plumaged Australasian Grebe and a Little Pied Cormorant sunning itself on an overhanging tree. A couple each of Brown and Yellow Thornbills were in the scrubby trees on the bank and I was pleased to see a Black-shouldered Kite land on an overhead wire above some rough grassland - just the second time I've seen this species since my arrival last year.



As I made my way towards the Plant Bank where the Swift Parrots had been seen I found myself walking through a stretch of trees on the wrong side of a canal that held a lovely male Rose Robin that declined to come down from the branches of a large tree, and both Spotted and Striated Pardalotes, good numbers of Noisy and Bell Miners and a nicely confiding pair of Crested Pigeons.




More to come ...


Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Mt Annan Botanic Garden
2 May 2023 Part II

The second part of my visit was spent around the two ponds next to the lawn (4) where a couple of rows of stalls ahd been set up for Mothers Day. Despite the disturbance this area proved to birdy - with a couple of Hardheads on the water, and Coot, Australasian Swamphen, Little Pied Cormorant, Australasian Grebe and Royal Spoonbill all offering close views on the lily-fringed shallows.





The upper pond went one better - hosting a perched a couple of White-faced Herons, an Australian Ibis flashing bare skin, an Azure Kingfisher poised motionless above the water, and a bunch of Red-rumped Parrots having a pool party kept me entertained for a good 20 minutes.




Just round the corner and up the hill from the edge of the lake I was delighted to come across an extended family party of eight White-winged Choughs waddling purposefully across the grass and sending detritus flying in all directions as they ripped apart the wood chip substrate in a giant planting bed. Longer-tailed than their Eurasian mountain-loving cousins, they were engagingly intent as the huddled together whenever the prospect of finding something tasty looked possible.



More to come...

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Mt Annan Botanic Garden
2 May 2023 Part III

Having had no luck so far with Swift Parrot I checked into eBird and found that they had also been seen at a distant corner to the southwest of the gardens called called the Banksia Garden (6). It took a 30 minute march over a grassy knoll (5) and down a rocky gully with a small tree-lined creek. On the way I picked up a couple of flyover Wedge-tailed Eagles over the stony hill and as I came down along the creek a female Rose Robin, a bunch of Crimson-browed Firetails, Superb Fairy Wrens and a quartet of White-browed Scrubwrens. The large trees round the Banksia garden itself held Crimson Rosellas, Australian King Parrots and several Eastern Rosellas several pinging Bell Miners, two Black-faced Cuckooshrikes, a Grey Shrike-thrush, an Olive-backed Oriole ... but no Swift Parrots.

So back I trudged, seeing very little else and headed for the the Plant Bank which turned out to be a sweeping curve of architecture that happened to have the right kind of flowering gum tree outside it, and as I arrived - and much to my relief - a group of ten Swift Parrots dropped into the crown of a eucalyptus of some description, and for the next forty minutes clambered around the tree feeding on lerps - which are sweet secretions of sugars and fats deposited by sap-sucking insects called psyllids. Click the link to find out more ... The Swift Parrots turned out to be pretty approachable, starting in the crown and then quietly wandering their way through and down the tree, happily feeding completely upside-down for extended periods. Relishing a terrific end to a busy day I filled my boots with photos of this spectacular red-faced and predominantly green long-tailed parrot that breeds in Tasmania and comes north along the East Coast for the winter months.




Cheers
Mike

 

[foresttwitcher]

Quite a bird - well worth the perseverance.