Top twitching

The Newcastle Swamps

I've just had a very successful two weekends pursuing a couple of rare visitors to Australia. Two weekends back it was a Yellow Wagtail #370 up in some saltmarsh on the edge of Newcastle. That was only a couple of hours drive north so very comfortable for a simple day trip. Bizarrely these birds return in varying numbers each year in mid-February and then they leave again in early March so there's a bit of a small window to find them. This is made easier by the fact that they return to the exact same power pole each time! It wasn't too difficult therefore to walk straight to pole 23 and there on the ground below it was the bird. Only one was hopping about but I think there are three back this year.

Careful where you walk - Orb Weavers

Power-pole 23

A bonus for the day were the several White-fronted Chats #371 (a saltmarsh speciality) which were very active in the same area.

White-fronted Chat

Last weekend I went south to a small state park on the coast near Kiama. The objective here was a group of four Canada Geese #372 which had flown in from New Zealand. They actually arrived much further south at New Year when I was back in Scotland but then disappeared. They reappeared two weeks back only a couple of hours away from Sydney which made it much easier to find them.

South coast

The geese were at the edge of the lagoon just where they were supposed to be and this has ultimately proven to be their downfall. On Thursday the powers that be decided that they posed some enormous threat to the Australian ecosystem and so they were shot! Not sure how I feel about that. They were very nice geese.

The lagoon in Killalea State Park

Rest in Peace. Geese.

After seeing the geese I headed 25 km inland to an area of upland heath which is home to the very rare and notoriously secretive and skulking Eastern Bristlebird and Ground Parrot. It took me 45 minutes to bag both! They like to come out at dusk so at least I timed my visit for then but it was still remarkably easy with two Eastern Bristlebirds #373 standing on the track looking at me and a Ground Parrot #374 flushing from the dense undergrowth at the side of the path. That saves me potentially many trips at a later date to track these elusive fellas down.

The unremarkable looking Barren Grounds nature reserve