Central Coast (20th August '06)

Another glorious weekend and another jaunt up to the central coast with Jarrod. This time to the South Wyong sewage treatment plant, the inland side of Tuggerah Lake and a quick stop at Strickland State Forest on the edge of Gosford.

Sewage plant ponds - quite nice actually

First stop at the sewage treatment plant was supposed to be a top place for ducks and grebes and indeed it was. Not the vast range that could have been present but large numbers of hardhead mainly with several australasian shoveler, chestnut and grey teal and a few pacific black ducks. Quite a few grebes about too in little mixed flocks of the australasian grebe and also Hoary-headed Grebes #248. The roll continues! And for the first time I managed to bag the day's target bird. At this time of year its not so easy for inexperienced me to pick the non-breeding grebes but mixed flocks do help a little. The hoary-headed being slightly bigger, slightly lighter and greyer with a subtle black patch on the back of the slightly longer neck. Luckily one of them also had the beginnings of the streaky breeding plumage emerging on its head. A couple of raptors flying about were probably a swamp harrier and a brown goshawk.

Black-winged stilt

Down at Tuggerah Lake we bagged the caspian tern and mallards and black swans. The royal spoonbills were out again and in the woods by the water there were variegated fairy-wrens and white-breasted woodswallows. Not much else though.

We got to the Strickland State Forest despite coming across an australian brush-turkey destroying the roadside verge and depositing the muck into the oncoming traffic. We arrived with only an hour to go before they shut the gates so we had a quick look round one of the shorter loop trails down in the rainforest section. This is truly a lovely spot and one of the nicest patches of rainforest I've been to in NSW. We only needed a couple of minutes anyway because the first bird we clapped eyes on was the thrush with the many names! The Bassian (White's; Ground) Thrush #249. A super little thing which was remarkably tame considering they're not the most common bird to skulk the forest floor. Loads of bell miners in there again making a right racket, a few scrub-wrens and that was about it. Not a day with a massive range of species but two new ones make it one of the great days!

Superb fairy-wren

Target bird: Hoary-headed Grebe (Yes!!!!)

Roadkill threat assessment: Moderate for Sunday morning joggers.
I wish I had hit the fox and rat we saw. Imported vermin you see.

Catch the Pigeon: Crested pigeon