Sydney bird sites

It was a quick visit to two Sydney city bird sites; Centennial Park and the Landing Lights Wetlands, and a reaquaintance with some old friends and the local bird life. Centennial Park was quiet, as it often is over Christmas, and without help did not find its two famous inhabitants, Powerful Owls and Tawny Frogmouths. The Landing Lights Wetland was a surprise. The expensive board-walks and paths were overgrown and thee area was badly neglected. A council sign promising that this valuable wetland would be renovated (again?) in the near future only adds insult to injury.

The city Australian White Ibis shows a very different demeanour to its country cousins, here lording it over the parkland, master of the rubbish bins and trash.

Little Corellas are a constant presence in Centennial Park, often present in large flocks. I was surprised not to see any of the Long-billed Corellas that a usually found together with the Little Corellas.

A distant flock of Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos made their presence known by their mournful calls.

At the Landing Lights Wetland, Red-whiskered Bulbuls were a new bird for me to see on this site. There were four Bulbuls in total.

Chestnut Teals, to be seen in the Landing Lights ponds and waterways.

Back to the Landing Lights Wetland

With the forecast for rain later this week the best thing to do was to head out in the sunshine on Tuesday to have a better look at the Landing Lights Wetland, near Sydney Airport. This very productive site has quite a reputation and it proved a very worthwhile visit.

There were a number of Golden-headed Cisticolas calling and it looked like some nest building was underway.

Also calling was this Australian Reed-Warbler.

A feature of the site is the number of small birds including this Yellow-rumped Thornbill.

The honeyeaters were represented by a number of Brown Honeyeaters and there were also White-plumed Honeyeaters around.

A Yellow Thornbill, difficult to photograph as they prefer to frequent the tops of trees.

Also calling and making the briefest of appearances, the Buff-banded Rail.

Landing Lights Wetland near Sydney Airport

I made my first visit to the Landing Lights Wetland near Sydney Airport last week. These wetlands are one of the few remnants of saline wetland on the Cook River that flows into Botany Bay. The site contains threatened salt-marsh ecosystem and is under restoration by the Bayside Council and many volunteers. Both mangroves and weeds have been removed to encourage the salt-marsh. The site attracts a variety of water birds, migrants and others with over 150 species listed on the Ebird list. On my short stay I saw Chestnut Teal, Black-winged Stilts, White-faced Herons, many Red-browed Finches, New Holland Honeyeaters as well as magpies, starlings, white ibis and Magpie-larks.

The later afternoon light casts impressionistic hews over these Chestnut Teal at Landing Lights Wetland near Sydney Airport.