One in the Bush: June 2007

Whaling and Footie (23rd June '07)

Firstly, for those of you interested in the marine finance and shipping business (you know who you are), check out the pictures of the Pasha Bulker on Simon and Aleisha's blog. Just click on the pictures for fantastic enlargements.

Looking back as we headed out of the harbour

On Saturday I headed out to sea myself for a spot of whaling. Well whale-watching I guess is the better term. Having seen them before when Kath was down here last I was really just in it for the pelagic birds. After the recent shocking weather, I was hoping for large numbers of oceanic species sheltering nearer to shore and in fact there have been a load of good sightings from various headlands over the past few days. Surely being out there among it all would be even better. Alas it wasn't.

Thar she blows!

We only managed to spot five species in total and two of them could be seen pretty much from my lounge window on a good day. In addition to those Silver Gulls and Crested Terns we managed to turn up a few Gannets and Yellow-nosed Albatross but also luckily for me, a single juvenile Northern Giant-Petrel #348. Success, although maybe not as dramatically successful as I was hoping.

Yellow-nosed Albatross

The Humpback Whales showed up in three pods, one of which decided to surface only 20 metres from the boat so we had pretty good views although they weren't being particularly active. One tail-slap and a couple of tail-up dives was pretty much it.

Thar they blow again

The swell was pretty big on the way out and I think only Jarrod, Adam and myself avoided bringing our lunches back to the surface. There was a dreadful scene in the main cabin of the ship with people being ill everywhere and a rather unpleasant aroma pervading the room. I made sure I stayed out on deck!

Off to the footie

In the evening I went to the Aussie rules football out at the Olympic stadium. Sydney put on an embarassingly bad display and were soundly beaten by Collingwood. I joined in booing them off. What a shocker!

Sydney stuffing up again no doubt!

Opera House concert (21st June '07)

Sports update: Well actually there is nothing to update because we've had the most abysmal weather here for a couple of weeks now. Lots of rain and flooding and gales and a cyclone which turned round at the last minute and headed back out to sea. Even my football on artificial turf has been cancelled. Things should be back on track this week although the forecast is for more light rain.

Suiting it up for the concert

On Thursday night I actually went to my first concert at the Opera House. It was the Sydney Symphony Orchestra along with a choir and the big pipe organ performing music from, of all things, computer games. Malcolm and Colly love their computer action so were mad keen and to be fair the music was pretty good in the end. It has to be said, though, that shouting out with joy at the sound of the theme from Final Fantasy is, in my opinion, sad!

Opera House

I'm happy to say I didn't know any of the pieces but the organisers were good enough to put up the relevant game on a big screen behind the orchestra. This provided much hilarity for the first few minutes of Super Mario Brothers.

Intermission

Ricky's harbour cruise (8th June '07)

Congratulations DOCTOR Ricky Syna

As you may be aware, we've had some pretty poor weather here for the Queen's Birthday long weekend which meant that it wasn't really possible to get out and do anything. There's a large slick of effluent heading our way from the Central Coast as well. The Hunter Valley was badly flooded over the last few days and its all oozing out to sea. This is going to knock the snorkeling out for a couple of weeks probably.

Opera House

Circular Quay

On Friday night, however, against all the odds we headed out onto the harbour in a boat for Ricky's graduation cruise. A couple of ferry services had already been suspended due to wharves blowing down or being flooded but that didn't stop us getting out there in the pouring rain to celebrate with Ricky.

Under the bridge

In the end it wasn't too bad actually and I was quite surprised to see all the reported damage to buildings and stuff next morning when the time we spent on the water was rather pleasant. Anyway, here are a couple of (very edited!) pictures from the night kindly provided by James "Colly" McTurk.

A couple of Aussie icons

Dancing Doctor

Famous at last! (5th June '07)

Well, I've finally been recognised by my bird-watching peers and they have deemed my Little Eagle sighting of "particular interest to the birding community". As a result I've appeared on my twitching website!

Check out the entry for the 2nd of June here. Sweet!

Giant cuttlefish (3rd June '07)

I'm slowly getting the hang of the diving down thing!

Obviously I couldn't stay out of the water for too long and I was back in the sea at Gordon's Bay on Sunday morning. We had been planning to head round to Shark Point next to Clovelly beach to try and find some sharks but the waves were a bit too high for that so we settled for the calmer waters in Gordon's Bay.

Obligatory blue groper picture

Once more the place didn't disappoint and I found my first Giant Cuttlefish. It wasn't a monster one at just over a foot long but it certainly showed off its colours and shape-shifting as it hunted for small fish among the rocks and weed. It would hide under a rock and then rush out trying to grab passing fish with its tentacles. Quite spectacular!

Giant Cuttlefish

Although the girls lost their football again later in the afternoon, the netball team actually managed to draw a game in the evening so we're moving in the right direction. Things are starting to turn around!

Warbler hunting (2nd June '07)

Prospect Reservoir

On Saturday I actually didn't go snorkeling! Instead I headed west towards Penrith with Jarrod to try and track down some new birds. My trusty internet had reported Swift Parrots around Prospect reservoir and also Buff-rumped Thornbills and Speckled Warblers in Castlereagh reserve.

Old picnic place

Our first stop in the woods around the reservoir didn't show up anything new but an overgrown old picnic area turned into a top place for honeyeaters with plenty of Wattlebirds and New Holland, White-plumed, Yellow-faced, Fuscous and White-naped Honeyeaters. The reservoir itself was dominated by Coots but there was also a Great-crested Grebe - my first for the Sydney region. No sign of those parrots though.

White-naped Honeyeater

We then spent a while in the Castlereagh reserve in the Nepean river valley but the place was absolutely dead. A couple of Pardalotes, Fuscous Honeyeaters and Yellow Thornbills seemed to be the only residents apart from a family of Eastern Grey Kangaroos. Not a warbler in sight. We were just about to give up when we looked up to see a Little Eagle #347 soaring over the trees. Suddenly, from out of nothing, the day was a major success!

"Lets go, this place is dead anyway..."

Early morning madness (1st June '07)

Well things were bound to get better and on Tuesday night we won our first football game for the new season! Our mixed team also won beating the top-of-the-table side who haven't lost a game for 2 seasons. I tell you what, they didn't like it!

Bonkers barmy

The last two mornings we've done a bit of crazy early morning snorkeling before work over at Gordon's Bay. Its not the warmest thats for sure with an air temperature of about 10C but the water is still about 20C so we can cope for an hour or so. We haven't seen anything too spectacular but there were still loads of fish and its a great way to start the day. I totally recommend it!