Holiday twitch

Silver Gull

New Holland Honeyeater

Well, my parents arrived in Australia on Friday evening and what better thing to do on your first day on holiday than to twitch a super rare American vagrant. A strange looking Golden Plover has been hanging around on a rock platform near Kurnell for a couple of months now. They say its strange looking but in fact its pretty much exactly the same as all the local Golden Plovers. The experts will tell you that its primaries are slightly longer, its legs are slightly shorter and as the local ones moult into their beautiful golden breeding plumage, it appears slightly greyer. Anyway, with a mounting pile of photographic evidence, the call was made last week that this is indeed the second ever record for Australia of an American Golden Plover #388.

The twitch is on!

This didn't excite me much until I realised that since my bird books were published, the American Golden Plover has recently been split from the Pacific Golden Plover and is now considered a full species.

What the fuss was all about - impressive!

As a result, Jarrod joined me and my folks and we headed down to the sea and ticked it off without any trouble at all. No better cure for jet-lag than a solid bit of twitching.

Bull Ant

Funnily enough we met Allan down at the rock platform. He doesn't do any birdwatching so what a coincidence that he turned up at that particular place at that particualr time. I'd almost say bizarre!

Wee dragon

Big Potato

Whisper

Well the weekend got off to a shocking start on Friday night when I was molested by a huge huntsman spider. Walking home in the dark, I suddenly felt something flapping round my face. I assumed it was flapping because it was managing to get at both my eyes, nose, mouth and ear all at the same time. Thinking it was just a big moth or locust or something, I grabbed it and threw it away whereupon the creature fell to the ground. I looked down to see a monster huntsman (see the "Christmas in the mountains" post below) staring back at me. At that point I apparently went very pale and certainly got the leg wobbles going. Nasty.

On Saturday I went down to Mittagong in the Southern Highlands with Emily to visit Palli and Fleur in their new place. Its very nice but even nicer is their new kitten, Whisper. The weather wasn't super and for the first time my sure-fire Platypus spot failed to deliver. At least we got over to Robertson to see the Big Potato. This has to be one of the worst "Big Things" in the whole of Australia. Little country towns all over the country contruct "Big Things" with a local theme to set them apart from the other little country towns in an effort to attract people. These range from "Big Things" like the iconic Big Pineapple in Nambour or the Big Prawn in Ballina to what surely must be the bottom of the scale in Robertson. Its not even that big and doesn't even look like a potato but rather something altogether less appealing. Classic.

The Big Potato

Staying out of the sea

Minnamurra Rainforest

Well there's certainly been no snorkelling recently as loads of sharks have turned up off the Sydney beaches over the last few weeks. Something to do with a cold current and loads of bait fish they say. Anyway, its resulted in 3 people being eaten in the last couple of weeks so I'm staying well clear until the feeding frenzy dies down!

Last weekend Emily, Jarrod and Allan joined me for a wee trip down south to the rainforest at Minnamurra and then up the hill to the Barren Grounds reserve where I've spotted Ground Parrot and Eastern Bristlebirds in the past. There was no twitching target for me this time, just the pleasure of getting out of the city for a day. The rainforest was pretty dead but there were loads of Bristlebirds up on the heath in the Barren Grounds which were new for Allan and Jarrod's lists. Not that Allan's keeping a list or anything!

Birds Nest Ferns