A fantastic day out birding in and around Sydney with Sarah our host and friends Robyn, Sylvia, Rob, Angus and Pip. We started at 8am and drove to Warriewood north of the city where a wooded area has a creek, ponds and a lovely boardwalk trail that leads onto a woodland reserve called Irrawong.
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| your having a Laugh Mr Kookaburra - taken by Dawn |
At Warriewood birds were everywhere it took nearly an hour to walk about 100 meters, I saw my first fairy-wrens, there were four of them hoping around on the grass they were literally 'Superb' and a family of birds I have longed to see, job done! Even before we left the car park we saw two Pacific Bazas drift over, in fantastic light you see clearly see the heavy barring on the body.
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| The boardwalk at Warriewoods |
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| Chestnut Teal taken by Dawn with her new TZ20 Panasonic |
We also found White-browed Scrubwren,, also Red-browed Finch, Eastern Yellow Robin, Red Wattlebird and Little Wattlebird, Laughing Kookaburra and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos. Rob got pretty excited we found Varied Sitella and a Grey Fantail was lovely to watch fly-catching.
An open area with ponds and reeds held a number of birds, we saw lots of Eurasian Coots, Grey Teal, the beautiful Chestnut Teal, Pacific Black Duck, Dusky Moorhen and plenty of Purple Swamphens.
we walked for another hour or so and tracked down several new species, Australian Brush-Turkeys would turn up anywhere along the trail, but it took us a long time to see the very vocal Whip Bird, these pretty birds have a very tropical-sounding loud call but often skulk away, we even saw one bathing. A Striated Thornbill showed well in some reeds and we had excellent views of Long-billed Corella and a single Eastern Rosella. Laughing Kookaburras could be heard every few minutes, what a great call, we found a pair excavating a nest hole in a tree.
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| Grey Teal |
On the return walk we added a few more species, a Fan-tailed Cuckoo took some tracking down as did the Olive-backed Oriole seen by a few of the group, the Channel-billed Cuckoo called but failed to show. A lovely melodious song was delivered by the Golden Whistler and what a lovely bird too!
From Warriewood we drove to the Chiltern Track which runs along the edge of the huge of the Ku-ring-gai National Park. It was quite quiet and very warm by now, our walk took down a valley on a wide fire-break track. We found several Honeyeaters of three species, New Holland, Yellow-faced and Lewin's, all three were cracking birds. We also tracked down a Spotted Pardalote in the canopy and we had a great sighting of a Square-tailed Kite which flew over us as we got back to the car. This locally rare species was even a tick for Rob who is a well accomplished Sydney birder.
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| Long-billed Corella |
Next we drove back southward towards Sydney stopping at a headland called Long Reef. It was very windy by now and we had to seek shelter in order to scope the rocky outcrop and sandy area where lots of gulls, waders, terns and cormorants were either feeding or roosting. Sea-watching was superb, one of rhe best sessions I have ever had. Hundreds of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were joined by a few of the smaller Fluttering Shearwater and the odd Short-tailed Shearwater . Further out we saw many Australasian Gannets, Crested Terns and to my great delight albatrosses. We had good views of Buller's and even better views of Shy Albatross, fantastic, my first ever Albatrosses!
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| Crested Pigeon |
On the shore we found a large number of Red-necked Stints with Ruddy Turnstone, Pacific Golden Plover, Grey-tailed Tattler and many Pied, Little-black and Great Cormorants. The Silver Gulls roosted with Crested Terns and a single White-fronted Tern. Other species seen on this part of the trip were, White-headed Heron, Australian Pelican and a Nankeen Kestrel. On a nearby golf course we added Crested Pigeon and Masked Plover to the day list.
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| Australian Ravens |
Lastly we visited Dee Why Lagoon a little further down the coast, this brackish lagoon held many Eurasian Coots but not much else, we saw a Willy Wagtail, a single Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and two superb White-cheeked Honeyeaters in the trees behind us. A flock of House Sparrows were remarkable only because they are supposed to be getting rare in Sydney.
That finished our superb day, we listed over 70 species, many of them lifers for me, we drove home in heavy Sunday beach-traffic, I dozed off a few times.....no I wasn't driving!
Australian Brush-turkey
Pacific Black Duck
Grey Teal
Chestnut Teal
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters
Short-tailed Shearwater
Fluttering Shearwater
Shy Albatross (T. cauta)
Buller’s Albatross (D. bulleri)
Australasian Gannet
Great Cormorant
Little Black Cormorant
Pied Cormorant
Little Pied Cormorant
Australian Pelican
White-faced Heron
Great Egret
Pacific Bazza (Crested Hawk)
Square-tailed Kite
Brown Goshawk
Nankeen Kestrel (Australian Kestrel)
Dusky
Moorhen
Purple Swamphen
Eurasian Coot
Grey-tailed Tattler
Grey-tailed Tattler
Ruddy Turnstone
Red-necked Stint
Red-necked Stint
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Pacific Golden Plover
Masked Lapwing
Arctic Jaeger
Silver Gull
Crested Tern
White-fronted Tern
Spotted Turtle-dove
Crested Pigeon
Long-billed Corella
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
Rainbow Lorikeet
Eastern Rosella
Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Channel-billed Cuckoo (calls)
Laughing Kookaburra
Superb Fairy-wren (Superb Blue Wren)
Spotted Pardalote
Spotted Pardalote
White-browed Scrubwren
Brown Gerygone
Brown Thornbill
Little Wattlebird
Red Wattlebird
Noisy Miner
Lewin’s Honeyeater
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
White-cheeked Honeyeater
Eastern Spinebill (calls/inflight)
Eastern Yellow Robin
Eastern Whipbird
Varied Sittella (nominate race)
Golden Whistler (M)
Willie Wagtail
Grey Fantail
Olive-backed Oriole (calls)
Magpie-Lark (Peewee)
Australian Magpie (nominate race tibicen)
Pied Currawong
Australian Raven
(pair & fledgling)
Red-browed Finch
House (sparrow (small flock)
Welcome swallow
Common Starling
Common Myna (Indian Myna)
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