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This very cold and crisp Sunday morning
in Sydney, myself and Lorne Johnson performed the usual monthly survey at
the Newington Wetlands site (between the Sydney Olympic Stadium and the Olympic
Village), while marked and unmarked police cars were busily going around
catching and booking speeding vehicles, disturbing our fine peaceful Sunday
morning. Though nothing really rare was seen, the highlights that morning were
hearing a Brown Quail, an over-wintering Australian Reed Warbler and seeing a
Brown Goshawk chase a Black-shouldered Kite through a 2 metre high tunnel, the
Black-shouldered Kite reappeared but we lost sight of the Brown Goshawk. Two
weeks ago I witnessed anothe Brown Goshawk chase away a Black-shouldered Kite at
the Windsor Turf Farms - amazing!!. This wetland site has a lot of potential to
become a fairly descent bird site if carefully maintained.
Then it was off to Carlingford shops. First stop
was the newsagency, where the latest Geo magazine featured an article on Regent
Honyeaters up northen NSW (I forgot the town but it started with a B).
Then it was off to Woolies, where Lorne had to buy
some groceries. Here we saw some cheese from Tasmania with Southcape on it. We
saw some "unusual bird" on the cheese (can't see it matching any bird on
any Australian field guide). Next time somebody goes to Woolies,
Franklins etc, and sees this cheese, and if they are able to identify the bird,
could they let myself and Lorne know what bird is featured on it, as we are very
curious!!!
The final stop was the Pet Shop and there we saw a
male Eclectus Parrot which both of us certainly would've wanted to
tick.
Latter that morning, we had a listen to a few music
CD's. Among many other great CD's ("No Doubt", "Deadstar" etc), Lorne played one
by a band called EELS. The song was titled "I like Birds" (Eels
is Californian folk-rock band and this
single is from their great new album DAISIES OF THE GALAXY). We think it should
become the new "Twitchers Anthem" (perhaps if Captain Carl has a CD player
onboard the Sandra K, we could play it on the next July pelagic, while we are
out looking for rarities!!!). I can't wait for this pelagic trip as we will be
shouting "Go the Blues" for the Blue Petrels (in summer its "Go the All Black's
for the Black Petrels"). Lorne also showed me a copy of the latest BBC magazine
which is jammed packed with great bird pics.
Edwin
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