Christmas 2008

I went down to Melbourne for Christmas to spend a week with my brother and his family.




Reese and soon to be sibling.


Lots of kangaroos only a few hundred metres from the house.

Lady Carrington Drive

Went for a walk to spot the flocks of Pacific Bazas that supposedly live on Lady Carrington Drive.
Did not see any Bazas but we did see a lot of other wildlife.


Flannel Flower Actinotus helianthi


Turtles


There were lots of monitors about, well at least the three that we saw.


Water dragon


Variegated Fairy-wren


An attempt at non-consensual mating by a Superb Lyrebird.


This one is actually in focus but you can't see the tail as well.

Reptile park

Adelle drove me to the reptile park on the weekend, it was hard to tell what was more entertaining the driving or the reptiles. Luckily Australia is reasonably flat so there were not too many hillstarts.


The mighty land mullet as magnificent as I had always imagined.


Thought I might have had a legitimate tick until I saw the sign for it on the outside of the enclosure.




Cape barren goose

Ubuntu

capertee

Some pictures from the capertee valley.
I did not take that many due to the rain.

Thornleigh

Some photos from a park a few hundred metres from Adelle's house.




Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen)


Eastern Water-Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii)


Eastern Water-Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii) the red chest indicates it is a mature male.

Near Taffy's rock

Adelle and I went for a walk to Taffy's rock on the weekend.

Edit: We did not make all the way to Taffy's rock on this occasion, but did get there on a latter walk.


Surmounting Taffy's rock.


View Larger Map


On top of Taffy's rock.


Heath Monitor (Varanus rosenbergi)

Budawangs

Well after approximately 100 emails or so a trip to the Budawangs was finally organised.
Getting out of Sydney was a bit of a drama but it eventually happened and after a quick involuntary detour to Menai we were on the pacific highway.
The road to the wogwog camp site was pretty good apart from a little bit just before Nerriga where the mighty Magna was temporarily waylaid is some particularly bad mud.

Magna and Bigma.

The first day was a tad damp, but the second dat was good with some nice views and my third encounter with glossy black cockatoos.

Pigeon house mountain.


Glossy black cockatoos.

Walking around

Went for a wander by the cooks river near my house on the weekend.

Adelle took this photo of some red rumped parots and a "yellow" crimson rosella being pestered by a noisy miner.

Yengo

A few pictures from the Yengo NP

Waratah


Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus)


Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus)

Birdwatching

Went for a quick look out west with Iain yesterday.
Castlereagh was as poor as usual, with buff rumped thornbills being the only bird of note.
Bushells lagoon was better with some brown quails but pitt town lagoon was poor.
Scheville (probably not spelt like this) was alright with a good view of a creasted shrike tit.

Brown Quail


Again, although slightly blurred.


Golden headed cisticola


Creasted Shrike-tit


poppy

Mt Solitary Redux

Adelle, Simon and I went for a we wander over Mt Solitary on the weekend. The walk links Katoomba and Wentworth Falls and although it was the third time for me it was the first time in winter which makes it a lot nicer as in summer the heat can be brutal.

The three sisters at the start of the walk.


Heading up the last little bit before reaching the top of Mt Solitary.


Glossy black cockatoo, there were four of these lovely birds about.


Mt Solitary in the distance at the end of the second day.

Sydney olympic park

Went for a wee cycle today around Olympic park. The bird life was all right but not spectacular.
There was a birds Australia display there in a few of the buildings which was nice.

Fedora

Got bored and changed my Linux distro from Ubuntu to Fedora. Pretty much the same really except I liked the package management in Ubuntu a bit more. Still got everything working after a while.

Capertee

A few pictures from the Capertee


The Glen Davis campsite.


Cockatoos


Birdwatching

Yengo NP

Mogo campsite


Bridge remains

Colo river

Colo river


It took a while to get the sand out.

Pitt town lagoon

Not many birds this time unfortunately.

Frog

Another picture of the frog seen in the Royal NP.