Beckham in Australia

An 80000-plus sell-out at the Olympic stadium

The David Beckham bandwagon swept into town this week and there's no doubting he's probably worth all the money that the LA Galaxy are paying him due to the extra revenue he's clearly bringing to the club. On top of all his sponsor stuff, the Galaxy played Sydney FC in a friendly last night at the Olympic stadium. Sydney usually get maybe 15000 to a game on a good day but over 80000 turned up yesterday, paying a lot more than you'd usually do to see the local A-League rubbish. I was among them.

Beckham prepares to take a corner

Ruud prowls his technical area

The standard of football was very poor and the refereeing was even worse but there were 8 goals and in the end Sydney ran out undeserving 5-3 winners. Beckham himself was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch but unfortunately his team-mates just aren't good enough to keep up with him so he's not as influential as he could be. Ruud Gullit is the new Galaxy coach and he was playing Beckham in a rather withdrawn holding central midfield role which is not maybe where I'd play him but then I'm not a professional footie manager.

Beckham scores a stunning trademark free-kick into the top left corner

At least Becks did score one of his amazing free-kicks and I guess thats what we all went there to see. A touch of class. Saying that, it wasn't exactly the Premiership!

You've got to love the big screen

Another Big Twitch

The weather was much nicer this time around

Well wouldn't you know it, the day after Jarrod and I left the area, the Lesser Yellowlegs returned and so I had to go back up there at the weekend. And so, once again, I set out on the 6 hour drive north to spot the rare American vagrant wader. This time, however, I enlisted the help of the pros and e-mailed a couple of eminent birdwatchers and arranged with them to meet up to find it. One of them is local to the area and knew exactly in which swamps it likes to hang out. By the time Sunday morning came around, others had come up with the same idea so our initial group of 4 had swelled to 12. I don't like birdwatching in groups this big but there was no option on this occasion.

The Yellowlegs' fame is spreading

The local expert came up trumps though and we found the Lesser Yellowlegs #364 in the second swamp we tried. I was happy to see that it has made friends with a small flock of Marsh Sandpipers. The pros also found me a group of Mangrove Gerygones #365 which I would have just passed off as the identical looking, and much more common, Brown Gerygone. Apparently the call is diagnostic. Of course it is.

A pair of Wandering Whistling-ducks

Unfortunately I didn't get a nice picture of the Yellowlegs for you all as, just as I was about to go for it, one of the muppets in the group went crashing into the swamp and flushed it. Magic. As I say, I don't like big groups especially when a couple of them are clearly idiots. Anyway, the experts were exceptionally nice people and, with their help, it was mission accomplished and another two for the list.

A Big Twitch

The weather was Un-Australian

Two weeks ago a Lesser Yellowlegs was sighted in a swamp on the NSW north coast and it was spotted again in the same place last weekend too. It had somehow got itself horribly lost and instead of being in America, found itself in a small puddle of water in Australia. A vagrant this rare just had to be checked out but unfortunately the soonest that I could get away to try and see it was this weekend. And so, early on Saturday morning, Jarrod and I set out on the 1030 km round trip to try and find this little lost American wader.

Birdwatching is lots of fun

The weather was awful on the drive north and ultimately proved our downfall I suspect. When we arrived at "one of the last swamps at the end of Boyters Lane" we knew it was probably all over. The recent heavy rain had merged all of the little swamps into one huge wetland and so even if the Yellowlegs was still in Australia, it certainly wasn't nicely contained in one small pond. We carefully checked the whole area with no joy. Our hopes were lifted at one stage when Jarrod spotted three waders on the far side of a flooded field. Not only that but one of them was clearly different from the other two. Without a scope we couldn't identify them and, with so much at stake, we just had to wade out through the water getting very soggy feet only to find they were the very common Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and the different one was simply a juvenile.

A Jabiru briefly turned up which was nice

The weather cleared towards the end of the day and it turned out to be a very pleasant weekend anyway. We stayed over at a motel in the coastal town of South West Rocks and returned to the swamps again the next day on the off chance but ultimately turned up empty handed.

Lovely beaches as always

A pair of Ospreys at the coast

A young kangaroo decides to make his escape

Even without the Yellowlegs, the birdwatching for the weekend was pretty good and Jarrod got 7 new ones for his list, breaking through the 200 barrier in the process. These included the Jabiru, Brahminy Kite and Forest Kingfisher towards the southern edge of their ranges. I also got my first Wonga Pigeon outside of a carpark or picnic area! We also found another echidna, saw plenty of kangaroos and also breaching Humpback Whales from one of the headlands. Thankfully, noone else today has reported spotting the Yellowlegs over the weekend!

Sunday in Belmore Swamps

Car Camping - Coolah Tops

Scary storm (pic. A Larsen)

Time to "Go Bush"

Nothing to report from this weekend, but last weekend I took the Friday and Monday off and headed to Coolah Tops NP for a spot of car camping with Allan, Jarrod and Leon. The beauty of car camping is that you don't need to carry anything so you can take all the luxuries like chairs, pillows and beer. Coolah Tops is about 450 km north-west of Sydney on the western edge of the Dividing Range. The drive took us over the Blue Mountains then north through the farmland and vineyards round Mudgee and up into the park. Its fairly nice bush with quite an open understorey and lots of white Snowgums.

The farmland on the way proved better for birdwatching

We went for even more luxury by hiring an old bushmans hut which only set us back 20 bucks (8 pounds) a night. It didn't have power or water or anything but was a dry place to stash our gear and was actually quite cosy in the evenings with candles and a log fire going.

The hut - very cosy in the evenings

All the luxuries

I actually camped out on the veranda but was quite happy to have the hut one night when there was a quite substantial thunder storm. The whole park was also teeming with flies so a place to escape them was essential.

Escaping the flies

Dawn

We spent the days bushwalking including one adventurous trek along the side of a large cliff in search of a cave full of bats. This involved a bit of scrambling which didn't bother my comrades too much but had me a little on edge. We found the cave eventually but it didn't contain any bats. It was just full of years and years worth of goat poo!

Dodgy cave walk

Car camping wildlife

Flies were the predominant form of wildlife

As I'm becoming all too aware, the Dividing Range is absolutely rubbish for birdwatching. The place was pretty much dead but despite this I managed a ridiculous three new species for my list. The Buff-rumped Thornbill #361 was hanging out in the trees by the hut but luckily the farmland on the drive to the park was full of various larks and we managed to pick up the Rufous Songlark #362 and the Singing Bushlark #363 on fences next to the road.

Echidna

Wombat

If the birds were bad though, the other animals were great. The place was crammed full of kangaroos and wallabies and on our walks we came across two echidnas. Round the hut were several wombat holes and we were lucky enough to see several come out at dusk and one returning home in the morning after a bit of a late night out. My first wombats. Tremendous.

Kangaroos - some of which were boxing kangaroos

We went spotlighting one night and found several Greater Gliders which are big flying possums which can glide up to 100 metres between trees on skin flaps which extend between their legs! There were a few lizards out on the cave walk and a couple of turtles (of all things) crossing the road on the way home.

White's Skink

Cunningham's Skink

Why on Earth did the turtle cross the road?

Rather more unwelcome were the feral goats, boar and an introduced fox. And the spiders. These only came out after dark and after the first night we soon stopped wearing thongs (that's flip-flops for my non-Australian readers) around the place. Several huntsmen were wandering around and also a nasty funnelweb which decided to adopt its threatening front legs up, fangs out, ready-to-bite posture. Unfortunately a large log fell on this particular individual - three times!

Huntsman

Funnelweb - evil threat posture