Saturday the 29th June dawned with me having the day to myself as Barbara had other commitments. I'd decided to visit Centennial Park, Sydney's largest at 220 hectares and filled with running tracks,sports pitches,horse riding tracks and several large ponds. There is also a remnant of rain forest swamp in the middle.
The day was however pretty grim, with Sydney's famous 'East Coast Low' hanging over the city and the rain being almost constant. It wasn't cold though just wet, so being the hardy northern hemisphere type that I am I decided to go anyway !
I wandered around for a hour or so seeing mainly birds that I'd already spotted before.
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| Spotted Turtle Dove |
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| Australian Pelican |
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| Purple Swamphen |
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| Willie Wagtail |
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| Welcome Swallow |
When I got to the swamp I chanced upon another hardy/foolish birder, an elderly aussie lady, and asked her if there were any chance of seeing Tawny Frogmouth. She advised me where she'd last seen one and then said " have you seen the Barn Owl ! "
She then told me where there was a roosting Eastern Barn Owl, so I hurried off in that direction.I'd walked past the spot earlier in the day but would never have guessed it was there. It was roosting under the fronds of a palm tree about forty foot above my head. With the rain pouring down I attempted to get some record shots.
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| Eastern Barn Owl |
I then headed off to the swamp to see if I locate a Tawny Frogmouth but the paths through were mostly under water and it was pretty damp in there. I did see my first Flying Foxes though. These large bat-like mammals used to be fairly common all over Sydney but they have been 'encouraged' to leave the city centre parks and now are harder to find.
I'd now had enough and caught the bus into the city and went to my 'new' favourite local, The Lord Nelson for some lunch. I also got a 6'er, six bottles of Three Sheets to enjoy later when I watched the British & Irish Lions take on the Wallabies in Melbourne later that evening on the TV.
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