Bundeena crabs

Gloomy Sydney from South Head

It's been a mixed bag over the past couple of weeks in terms of the weather with a lot of rain interspersed with hot sunny days. Apparently the El Nino/La Nina cycle is very much the latter at the minute which means we're in for a wet summer but I guess there's some consolation in the fact that the bushfire season shouldn't be too bad this year.

A damp Pied Currawong

The situation was summed up at the weekend when we went to South Head on Saturday to see if we could see any whales. We could hardly even see the sea, let alone the whales, because of the rain which we trudged about in for a bit.

Sunny Bundeena

On Sunday, however, it was blazing hot as we headed down to Bundeena which is at the very northern edge of the Royal NP. On Saturday, a Beach Stone-curlew had been seen on a sand spit down there and, being very unusual for these parts, I had to go and try to find it. I didn't.

Soldier Crabs

We did see a Mangrove Heron and had fantastic views of a Grey Goshawk so the bird-watching wasn't altogether useless. The highlight for me though was an army of Soldier Crabs feeding on the sand. They didn't let you get too close and burrowed into the ground as they sensed you getting too close. I did manage to chase them around for a bit to get a couple of pictures though...

Red-necked Wallaby