Birders,
A quick summary of what has been an excellent weekend of birding.
Picked up a new bird on both days to nudge me a couple closer to 400.
Hit out early on Saturday morning for a quick lap around Bicentennial
Park before the weather turned too ugly. I started out from the
Southern most carpark at Lake Bellvedere intent on an anti-clockwise
loop, via the board walk. I was hoping for a Striated Heron somewhere
among the mangroves. Thornbills and fairy wrens were quite
conspicuous, despite falling rain. Black Winged stilts and both Teals
were the main birds in and around the pond,with most stilts herding
younguns among the upright roots. My Heron was roosting on the first
wreck visible on the eastern side of the walkway, just past the new
tidal gate. I didn't get the sort of look I would have liked, but such
an odd bird is quite unmistakable. I finished the lap without seeing
much else of interest, but a wide variety of species, mostly in good
numbers. There was a funny looking wader on the western edge of
Bellvedere, visible from the hide, but I suspect it was just a lack of
glass power that left me guessing. If anyone has any ideas, it was
somewhere between a Sharpie and a Dotterel in size, with obviously
yellow legs, fairly white chest and underside, with mostly grey on the
wings and over the back. Short stubby bill too, that might have been
vaguely pink but it was dirty and hard to tell.
Today I went up the Blue Mountains, about half an hour from here, to
have a look for Southern Emu Wren, a bird I'd never seen and was quite
keen for. We took the Lawson Ridge firetrail out from Queens Rd,
following Arwen's directions. It's a stunning area, with wet forest
giving way periodically to heath and wet grasses, also some
hanging-swamp. It was very wet, not surprisingly, with the track a
foot under a fast flowing creek in some areas. The Emu Wrens turned
out to be not too hard to find. Just locate some likely habitat, and
listen for the barely audible high pitched call that's a little like a
Fairy Wren. We snuck around in the heath for a while ducking and
weaving until a brilliant female (they're much more brightly rufous
than in Pizzey) darted across the open grass and flopped into a hakea.
Bec and I both got a fairly good view before we moved on, keen to get
above water for a while. I couldn't find a male in the end, but I
reckon I'll be back for a better look after the mountains dry out a
little.
EB
--
Evan Beaver
Lapstone, Blue Mountains, NSW
lat=-33.77, lon=150.64
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