Scheyville NP (29th October '06)

Scheyville paddock

After spending the weekend at work and Dave e-mailing me to ask why I haven't seen a weebill yet, I managed to briefly pop out to Scheyville NP on Sunday evening. Its right on the northwest edge of the city and is an example of dry woodland (dominated by grey box, narrow-leaf ironbark and redgums apparently) which remains pretty much the only refuge in the region for birds restricted to dry shale areas. The weebill loves a bit of that! Despite being a reserve since the early seventies, it was only made a fully fledged national park in the last couple of years. I can't believe I've not been out there before now. Crazy really. Malcolm joined me to help navigate the way avoiding the cheeky toll roads. We left home pretty late and arrived at the park with only an hour or so of daylight left. This didn't matter one bit as it took only about 25 minutes to tick off three new species.

Mal attempts to bag a couple more before the light goes completely

The very first bird I clapped eyes on was one of several white-browed woodswallows #253 which were everywhere. They don't even come to Sydney many years but do come here in the summer in bad drought years to breed. The next bird to cross my path was the fuscous honeyeater #254. A rather drab little chap but the predominant honeyeater in this dry forest. We picked up a few noisy friarbirds, dusky woodswallows and a colony of tinkling bell miners and a couple of red-browed firetails before a small group of crested shrike-tits #255 moved through the canopy. Striking! We saw a sacred kingfisher down by the creek and the common eastern yellow robins and fantails and then it went dark!

I'll be back this weekend for a full day and the weebill shall be mine.
Oh yes, it shall be mine.

Homebush Part II (15th October '06)

Purple swamphen

It was an absolute scorcher on Saturday, up around 37C but Jarrod bravely set out to Homebush and was rewarded by bagging the extremely rare (in Sydney) glossy ibis and a turquoise parrot. These are both excellent spots round here and I haven't seen either yet. You can imagine the J-Rod was quick to get on the phone to rub it in! By Sunday, the temperature had dropped to a much more pleasant 21C and the both of us headed back there in the extreme hope that these two birds might, by some miracle, still be hanging around. They weren't.

A pair of chestnut teal

We covered every inch of the parklands and wetlands, however, and turned up several nice birds. A buff-banded rail (only my second sighting), the same avocets and sandpipers as last week were still out in abundance as well as a few black-fronted dotterel. A black-shouldered kite was cruising about and brown honeyeaters, which you don't see down here every day, were making themselves known. We saw a lovely flock of fairy martins with their bright red heads, loads of reed warblers round the pond margins and a cockatiel. Yes, a cockatiel. Now Jarrod ticked this one although surely it was an escaped pet! I don't know mate! A parrot which hangs out in the arid interior in flocks should not be sitting happily by itself on a fence in Homebush. Just as well we saw loads of them in the Outback before Jarrod started his official list!

A rather slimy australasian grebe

After flushing what I was pretty sure was a snipe from some long grass earlier in the day, one last look from the wetlands hide at dusk turned up a great view of a single Latham's (Japanese) Snipe #252 ending the day on a high. Another summer migrant, these chaps have just flown in from Japan for their summer holidays and straight onto my list. Sweet!

Latham's (Japanese) Snipe

Homebush (8th October '06)

Swamptastic!

The football finals have all finished now so I was able to return to the bush at the weekend at last. I didn't go far. Just 10 minutes up the road to the wetlands in Bicentennial Park which is the area around the 2000 olympic games site.

The wetlands next to Mason Park

It was warm as I set off - over 30C - but then a cold change came through bringing strong gales and a 10 degree instant drop in temperature! This meant that most of the birds tucked down into the bushes and the thick grass out of the wind so there was not an awful lot to see. At first glance it just looked like a load of the ubiquitous black-winged stilts and similarly omnipresent chestnut and grey teal. Just as well then that on further inspection two of the species that seemed happy to display themselves in those conditions were new ones for me!

Sharp-tailed sandpipers

These were two species of sandpiper that would have just arrived from the northern tundra a couple of weeks back. There were loads of sharp-tailed sandpiper #250 and in one of the little groups, a single curlew sandpiper #251. There may have been others but most of the little waders were out in the middle of the shallow ponds and would have required a scope to pick.

There was also a group of 26 red-necked avocets which are allegedly very unusual in the Sydney region although I've seen them twice at Homebush now. There was also a lone hoary-headed grebe in full breeding plumage which was very nice considering the pain that Jarrod and I suffered in identifying them in non-breeding plumage a few weeks ago up at Wyong sewage treatment plant. And speaking of breeding plumage, the cattle egrets were up to it as well which I've not seen before.

Is that a..... Yes! Red-necked avocet!

The bottlebrush was out in a very bright display but the wind kept all the honeyeaters away. They usually love a bit of it!

Some sort of bottlebrush. Very nice.

You can never have too many pictures of blue wrens I say. They're great! Here are some more.

Superb fairy-wren

And finally, its competition time! Who can spot the lone curlew sandpiper in among the sharp-tailed ones?!