Another visit to Ku Ring Gai Wildflowers Gardens

Striated Thornbill

Whenever we travel to Sydney to visit family there, my wife and I try to get to the Ku Ring Gai Wildflower Gardens in the northern suburbs. It is about a 25-minute drive from my son's home. 

We enjoy visiting these gardens for three reasons:

• Some of the gardens have been planted and this area interests my wife.
• Much of the rest of this large property is near to how the original forest and scrubland would have looked.
• The whole area is a haven for the local birdlife - and that interests me.

Run by the local council, entrance to the extensive gardens is free. There is a very informative Visitor Centre with a small bookshop and plant nursery, and the staff are very helpful. Guided tours are available to visiting groups. There are many walking and cycling trails throughout the gardens.

On our last visit a few weeks ago, we spent about three hours exploring several areas and walking trails. Although I made a good list of birds seen during our visit, and many of them were calling frequently, I was disappointed that most of the birds were shy about coming out into the open. My camera did not get much a workout. 

The only reasonable photo of a bird is the one above of a Striated Thornbill - and it's not a particularly good photo at that. So instead of trying to spend all day chasing birds hiding in the foliage, I aimed my camera at some of the wildflowers out in bloom. You can see some of those photos below.

And I have added a photo of a butterfly as a bonus.

To read more about Australian birds, visit my other site Trevor's Birding.

A hungry Pied Currawong

Pied Currawong

Over the last few posts here I have written about some of the birds I saw and photographed while in Sydney earlier this year. My wife and I were visiting our son and his family. During our four-week stay, we took every opportunity to get out and about visiting some of the nearby parks.

On one family picnic at Lane Cove National Park, our five-year-old grand-daughter was exploring a walking track with Nanna. They were looking for flowers on the native plants. Suddenly, a Pied Currawong landed in the tree only a few metres from the path. It began eating something it was clutching in its claws.

Next thing, I see my grand-daughter running back up the path towards me. She explained that they had seen a currawong and that I should come quickly to have a look. I walked as quickly as my old legs could carry me, camera at the ready. The currawong was quite unconcerned about me taking photos just four or five metres away.

I couldn't see exactly what it had in its claws, but it kind of looked like a piece of bread. About 50 metres away in another picnic area down the hill, I could see several families also having barbeque picnics. Obviously, they had thrown a piece of bread to feed the currawong - or maybe it had snatched a piece from their picnic table. Only a little while earlier a kookaburra had snatched a sausage from the very hot barbeque plate we were using (you can read about it here). 

My Australian readers should be advised that it is dangerous to the birds and animals to feed them human food. It is not good for them. Visitors to Lane Cove National Park are warned about this via plaques on every picnic table. Unfortunately, many of the birds have learned to be sneaky and easily snatch human food - as we found out with that cheeky kookaburra.

You can read more about Australian birds, and see many more photos of them on my other site, Trevor's Birding. 

Grey Butcherbird

Family picnic at Lane Cove National Park, Sydney

Earlier this year my wife and I spent a few weeks in Sydney looking after our two grandchildren. This was during the recent school holidays there. We had a ball with our 8-year-old grandson and 5-year-ol grand-daughter. They are great fun and so full of life. They are also taking an interest in our native birds - I wonder how that interest has developed?

On the second last day of our stay, we went on a family picnic. We drove a short distance to one of our favourite places - Lane Cove National Park, about a ten-minute drive from home. We cooked some sausages on the barbeque (see photo above) and had the misadventure of having some of our lunch stolen by the local kookaburras. 

After lunch, I managed to indulge in a little bird photography. One of the local Grey Butcherbirds came to investigate what we were up to, and it posed nicely for me in the afternoon sun. While this is a widespread species in South Australia where we live, I can't really call it a resident species in our garden. It is more of an occasional visitor. 

In Sydney, however, I see or hear it nearly every day when staying with my family. I have also recorded it as present in many places we have visited in the Sydney region over the years. 

Unlike the Laughing Kookaburras, this butcherbird was not interested in snatching our lunch. It kept a keen eye on the ground for possible tasty pickings - such as small skinks, butterflies, bugs, beetles and other insects.

You can read more about Australian birds on my other site Trevor's Birding.

Grey Butcherbird

Laughing Kookaburras

Laughing Kookaburra

The Australian Laughing Kookaburra is probably one our most easily recognised birds. This large member of the kingfisher family is found in many parts of Australia and is easily identified by its rollicking, joyous call. The photos I have included in today's post were all taken on a recent holiday in Sydney.

My wife and I spent the whole of the April school holidays with our son and family. We were there to help look after our two grandchildren when they weren't at school. It's a tough gig - but we enjoyed it. Thankfully, they love going on picnics with Nanna and Grandad. Several times we drove the short distance to Lane Cove National Park. It was on these visits that I managed to take this series of photos.

Like many in the kingfisher family, these birds are often found near water courses. They are, however, also found far from water and we occasionally have them visit our garden at home which is about 4 km from a river. I was just checking my records a few days ago and it has been many years since a kookaburra visited our garden. 

There are many Laughing Kookaburras in the park where I took these photos. While they will take food provided by humans, this is strongly discouraged; there are signs on all the picnic tables stating this. This did not stop one of the kookaburras snatching our lunch. It took a sausage right off a hot barbeque plate! Cheeky bird.

Many Australians do not realise that we have two species of kookaburras. The other one is the Blue-winged Kookaburra of northern Australia. As yet I do not have a photo of that species. (Don't be confused by the blue on the wing of today's photos - the Blue-winged Kookaburra has a lot more blue on the wing.)

Noisy Miners

Noisy Miner - an Australian native honeyeater

My wife and I recently spent a few weeks in Sydney. We travel the 1300 kilometres to Sydney several times a year. These visits usually now often coincide with the school holidays. We go to look after our two grandchildren. It is a trip we always enjoy undertaking, not just because of spending time with the children, but also so we can explore the country along the way, and on the return trip.

While in Sydney we often go out to nearby parks or national parks. It is fun exploring such places with the children. They are so eager to observe and learn about the natural environment. Naturally, they take an interest in plants and flowers which are my wife's main interest. I am also pleased that they are quite knowledgeable about our native birds. I wonder where that comes from?

On one of these visits to the natural environment near to their home, I took the above photo of a Noisy Miner. This is one of our many species of honeyeaters here in Australia. Their name is truly apt, especially if there is a bird of prey nearby. They certainly know how to create a noisy response to any danger.

Some Australian bird lovers do not really like this species. In some places, they are very common and bossy. Their belligerent attitude often forces smaller species out of gardens and parks. Species such as fairywrens, finches, pardalotes and thornbills move on to other areas, much to some people's annoyance.

For more photos and stories about Australian birds, please visit my other site Trevor's Birding.

The Australian Galah

Australian parrot known as the Galah

We have many beautiful parrots here in Australia. Most people living here would have noticed several species of parrot in their everyday lives, even if they are not birders (bird watchers). One of the most easily recognised of Australian parrots would have to be the Galah. It was once called a Rose-breasted Cockatoo, a much more poetic name than Galah, in my opinion.

Over recent weeks, the Galahs around our home and garden here in Murray Bridge, South Australia, have been going stir crazy. We usually have small flocks of 5 to 50 Galahs fly over our house every hour or so. Sometimes the flocks can range up to 500 or more birds together. That is a spectacular sight. And noisy, too.

 Frequently they will land in one or more of the trees near our house, creating quite a noisy racket. In the last few weeks, they have been behaving in an erratic way, flying around and around, squawking loudly and wheeling around in the air above our property. I am not sure what has got into them. In the past, this behaviour is common during rainy days, but we haven't had one of those in a while. Strange.

Australian parrot known as the Galah

The photos I am showing today are from another time. These shots were taken from our cabin in one of the caravan parks in Mudgee, New South Wales. We were on our way home and it was a balmy evening. My wife and I sat on the deck of the cabin enjoying a late afternoon cuppa, just before we had our dinner. I noticed a Galah in a nearby tree, lit up beautifully by the setting sun. a few moments later, the female popped her head out of a hollow in the eucalypt tree. I figured that they were nesting and the were probably preparing the hollow for their eggs.

You can read more about Galahs here, and read more about Australian birds on my other site, Trevor's Birding.

Australian parrot known as the Galah

Australian parrot known as the Galah

Rainbow Bee-eaters come visiting

Rainbow Bee-eater

One of my favourite Australian birds would have to be the Rainbow Bee-eater. This colourful bird with the rainbow colours is widespread through much of mainland Australia. We occasionally have them in our garden in Murray Bridge as visitors. They rarely stay more than a few minutes. I have heard and seen them on a few occasions over recent weeks.

This has not always been the case. Many years ago - probably about 20 or so years ago - they could be counted as a breeding species on our five-acre block of land. On several occasions, they made their small nest at the end of a 30-40cm burrow in the sand. These nests were made in the banks on the side of the road running down the western edge of our land. In more recent years, they have just been occasional visitors.

Rainbow Bee-eaters arrive in southern Australia in the spring months around September and October. During our spring and summer months, they dig their nests, often in the sides of roads, culverts or in the banks of creeks and wash-outs. They raise their young and then migrate back to northern Australia and Papua-New Guinea in the late summer or early autumn, usually around March or April.

Despite their name, Rainbow Bee-eaters eat more than just bees. They will catch a wide variety of insects on the wing. When they do catch a bee, they will alight on a branch of a nearby tree and proceed to remove the stinger of the bee by banging it on the branch. I guess that they just don't want their lunch to bite them.

You can read more about Australian birds on my other site called Trevor's Birding.

Rainbow Bee-eater

Diamond Firetail Finches, Capertee Valley

Diamond Firetail

On our visit last year to Sydney, we came home a different way. Instead of travelling straight home to Murray Bridge, we detoured via Lithgow, Mudgee, Dunedoo, Cobar and Broken Hill. From Lithgow to Mudgee we detoured through the Capertee Valley, one of the birding hotspots in Australia. This was my first visit to the valley. I was disappointed during our brief visit. I didn't see some of the rarer birds known to inhabit this amazing landscape of towering sandstone cliffs.

When we stopped for afternoon tea at the small village of Glen Alice, I was pleased to see a solitary Diamond Firetail Finch, the one shown in today's photos. This beautiful member of the finch family is good to see anywhere and we even have this species as an occasional visitor to our garden. This was the only occasion I saw this finch on this particular five week holiday in New South Wales. It was a fitting addition to my bird list for the trip, and one of the highlights of the day.

Diamond firetail

Diamond Firetail

Birding in the Capertee Valley in New South Wales

Capertee Valley, New South Wales, Australia

On our way back from visiting family in Sydney last year, we decided to take a different route. We love travelling in Australia and we especially love exploring new routes and new places. One such place I had longed to visit was the Capertee Valley, just north of Lithgow and only a few hours' drive north-west of Sydney.

We left our son's home after breakfast and travelled up through the Blue Mountains and past Katoomba. This is a lovely part of Australia and there are many wonderful places to stop along the way. We only stopped briefly for morning tea because I wanted to make the most of the birding opportunities in the Capertee Valley. This has been a magnet for many birders over many years. The scenery is also quite spectacular, as you can see in today's photos.

Capertee Valley, Australia

I actually misjudged the distances and time needed to fully explore this area. To make a full exploration of the region, and to actually get to see many of the wonderful birds resident in this area, birders need to spend at least a full day here, preferably several days to a full week. There is so much to see.

We stopped a short distance east of the village of Capertee for a picnic lunch. It was just after midday - not the best time of the day to be birding in Australia on a warm day. While we ate our lunch, I saw zero birds and only heard one in the distance - possibly one of the treecreeper species found in this area. We were off to a bad start. Driving slowly down the road the countryside opened up from forest to farmland. We started seeing a few Australian Ravens, Australian Magpies, White-winged Choughs and occasionally a few Galahs and Magpie Larks. I managed zero photos of these birds; they were too far away.

Eventually, I decided to stop to get a few photos of the magnificent sandstone cliffs bordering the valley. They were spectacular in the afternoon sun. As I was taking these shots - those shown above and below - a solitary bird flew from the grass and landed on a fence post about 50 metres from me. With the good zoom lens on my camera, I managed a photo, but it is far from good, even for identification purposes. I think it is an Australasian Pipit which is found in the area.

Australasian Pipit?

Over the next few hours, we explored some parts of this beautiful valley. Some of the photos I took are shown below. I will write again next week about some other birds I saw that afternoon.

For more stories about my sightings of Australian birds, and for more photos of them go to my other site Trevor's Birding.

Capertee Valley, Australia

Capertee Valley, Australia

Capertee Valley, Australia

Capertee Valley, Australia

A day at the beach

Silver Gull, Pt Elliott, South Australia

Recently my wife and I celebrated another milestone in our lives together. To mark the occasion we went driving down south from our home to the lovely South Coast of South Australia. This is just over an hour's drive from our home in Murray Bridge.

Our first stop was at the Milang Bakery to buy some lunch. We enjoyed eating our lunch on the lawn overlooking the nearby Lake Alexandrina. The mighty Murray River - Australia's largest river system - runs into this lake before moving out into the Southern Ocean.

After lunch, we explored Hindmarsh Island. This inland island is near Goolwa, and we stopped at a picnic spot on the island overlooking the Murray Mouth. There were plenty of pelicans, cormorants, a few ducks and several species of ibis as well as a few Cape Barren Geese, one of our rarer bird species.

For afternoon tea we had a cup of tea accompanied by some homemade biscuits. I choose a lovely spot overlooking Horseshoe Bay at Pt Elliott. This is a popular holiday destination for many people, and also with day-trippers like ourselves. While we were having our cuppa and enjoying the view, a Silver Gull posed nicely on a nearby interpretive sign. It stayed long enough for a series of photos, almost as if it was posing especially for me.

For dinner that night we went to one of our favourite restaurants in Victor Harbor. It was a fitting end to a relaxing day.

You can read more about Australian birds and see more photos of them on my other site, Trevor's Birding.

Silver Gull

Horseshoe Bay, Pt Elliott, South Australia

Horseshoe Bay, Pt Elliott, South Australia

Australia Day

Budgerigars

Today is a special day here in Australia. It is Australia Day, our national holiday which commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney on this day in 1788. The fleet of ships carried many British convicts and soldiers. These people made up the bulk of the first settlers in Australia. Over the coming years, many more shiploads of both convicts and free settlers came from England and other parts to settle in this new land.

Over the years since then, there have been many waves of both emigrants and free settlers from the British Isles, Ireland and many other parts of Europe. This includes my own ancestors who fled religious persecution in the 1830s and 1840s. Many of these settled in other parts of Australia, including here in South Australia.

In more recent times, we have seen many refugees come to our land. These have come from many parts of Asia as well as Africa. I count among my friends some wonderful people who have fled terrible conditions in their homelands, including war, to make Australia their new home. On Australia Day, many of these people new to Australia take on Australian citizenship.

I hope that these new people to our great land appreciate our beautiful land, our wonderful wide open spaces, our huge areas of grasslands and rolling blue mountains, as well as our amazing array of birds native to our country.

Today I will show only a small selection of this beauty to be found here in Australia.

You can see more photos of our beautiful birds, and read more about them on my other site, Trevor's Birding.

Emu

Lorikeets

Galahs

Australian Pelicans

Nice pose Silver Gull

Silver Gull, Pt Elliot, South Australia

Earlier this week my wife and I celebrated another anniversary. We usually try to do something special on this day and this year we decided to go for an all-day outing. After an early morning phone call from our grandchildren, we set off on a drive via Milang, less than an hour from home. Milang is on the northern shore of Lake Alexandrina here in South Australia. The longest river system in Australia, the Murray River, flows into this lake before heading out to the Southern Ocean.

At Milang we visited the local bakery to buy some Cornish pasties and a lamington for our lunch. We took our lunch down to the lawned area between the lake and the caravan park. While we ate and had a cuppa, we enjoyed watching a few children and dogs playing nearby. The birdlife was not particularly abundant, except for a large, noisy flock of Little Corella parrots in the nearby trees.

Later in the afternoon, we parked on top of a lookout hill above Horseshoe Bay in Pt Elliot. While we were having another cuppa and a few homemade biscuits, a Silver Gull landed on an interpretive sign just in front of our car. It obligingly posed for me while I took some photos. Silver Gulls are the most common species of gull in Australia. They can be found all around the coastline and along most major waterways, near lakes and swamps, even far inland. Even though many people just call them "Sea" gulls, they are frequently encountered far from the sea, but never far from water.

You can read more about Australian birds, and see many more photos of them on my other site Trevor's Birding here.

Silver Gull, Pt Elliot, South Australia

Silver Gull, Pt Elliot, South Australia

Silver Gull, Pt Elliot, South Australia

Ku Ring Gai Wildflowers Gardens in Sydney

Laughing Kookaburra

My wife and I travel to Sydney several times a year to help look after our grandchildren, ages 8 and 5. Although they are very energetic and tire us out, we love being with them and getting to know them. On a visit last year, we took time out to go on a family picnic. One of our favourite places to visit would have to be the Ku Ring Gai Wildflower Gardens in the suburb of St Ives.

These gardens consist of two main parts: a planted garden of Australian native plants, with the rest being natural scrubland. The scrubland section is the largest part and gives the visitor a good impression of what this part of Sydney was like in its natural state, before settlement by Europeans.

The whole area is covered by walking trails which are easy to negotiate. In springtime, many of the plants are flowering. Even at other times of the year, you can find something flowering. Where there are native flowers the observant visitor will also find plenty of native birds, many of them feeding on the nectar of the flowers.

I have seen a good range of honeyeaters in these gardens, including Eastern Spinebill, Scarlet Honeyeater, Crescent Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Lewin's Honeyeater and both Red and Little Wattlebirds. One can also see a range of parrots, including Galahs, several species of cockatoos and lorikeets, finches, doves and pigeons, pardalotes, thornbills, robins, swallows, fantails and scrubwrens. Australian Brush Turkeys are often seen in the picnic areas, but seeing a Superb Lyrebird is a little bit harder, but they have been seen in these gardens from time to time.

You can read more about Australian birds, and see more photos of them on my site called Trevor's Birding.