A short visit to Royal National Park
After my visit to my son and family in Sydney in May of last year, I travelled south and followed the south coast of New South Wales and Victoria on my way home. As you might have gathered from my opening sentence, I am over a year behind in sharing my bird and travel photos here.
On my way south I took a detour into the Royal National Park, Australia’s first declared national park and the second oldest national park in the world. Over the many trips we have made to Sydney we have visited this park on a number of occasions. Because of its size and many and various attractions, visitors could spend many days exploring its beauties. I am sure that nearby residents have spent a lifetime enjoying its wild beauty.
After enjoying a cuppa for morning tea I went exploring along Lady Carrington Drive. I distinctly remember my very first walk along this walking/cycle track many years ago. I was told that this was a reliable site to see Lyrebirds. Indeed, I did see a Lyrebird on the occasion, casually following me along the track. That was my very first ever sighting of the species. I was so shocked that I forgot to take a photo. On this most recent visit, I was disappointed not to have that early experience repeated.
The picnic areas and walking track in this part of the park are adjacent to the Hacking River. While I was able to get a reasonable list of birds seen and heard in the area, not many of the individuals present were generous enough to come out and pose for my camera. That is why I also like to take shots of our native plants as well. They tend not to fly away while I focus my camera.
Annoying Noisy Miners
No Comments »21st September, 2019; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Honeyeaters, National Parks
In my last post, I showed photos of some Laughing Kookaburras in the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney. This park is only a short distance from my son’s home, so over the years, I have visited it often. On this occasion, the kookaburras allowed me to come very close to where they were investigating something on the ground. I couldn’t determine what they were so interested in because I was enjoying photographing the birds from a close distance.
A Noisy Miner also joined in the quest for something to eat. They may have spotted some picnic leftovers and were looking for more. Just like the kookaburras, I was able to get close up photos of the miners in their natural environment without disturbing them in any way.
On other visits to this park, the Noisy Miners can be rather annoying. Just like the kookaburras, they are very bold and will come up to humans and even snatch food from the picnic tables when it is left uncovered or unattended. There are plenty of signs in this park warning people not to feed the birds, but that still doesn’t stop the birds snatching human food for themselves.
The Noisy Miner is one of many species of native Australian honeyeaters. It is not to be confused with the very similar Yellow-throated Miner. Their distribution overlaps in parts of Australia. There is yet another species – the Black-eared Miner but that species is endangered and is only found in a few small isolated populations.
The Noisy Miner is an aggressive species and has adapted well to urban environments and introduced plant species. It acts aggressively towards many of our smaller bird species such as finches and wrens, chasing them away from parks and gardens, taking their food and nesting spots. Some people also find that their raucous calling can be annoying at times.
Kookaburras up close
On many other occasions, I have written about my visits to Lane Cove National Park. This beautiful park is close to the Chatswood CBD just a short distance north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. My son and his family live just a few minutes’ drive from the park, so I have taken many opportunities to visit and take photos of the birdlife, the flora and other interesting sights along the Lane Cove River which flows through the park.
On a visit earlier this year, I spent most of one day exploring the park and taking photos of anything that took my attention. At one point I lingered near a picnic table. There are many such tables in the park for the convenience of visitors. Two Laughing Kookaburras were attracted to something on the ground but I couldn’t work out exactly what they were so interested in – perhaps it was a beetle or some other insect. Or the remnants of a picnicker’s lunch.
The two kookaburras kept squabbling over whatever had attracted their attention and consequently I was able to take quite a few closeup photos as shown in today’s post. I was able to get to within a metre or two of the birds so I really didn’t need the wonderful zoom facilities of my camera.
I kept on shooting until they decided to fly off. Visitors need to watch carefully for the kookaburras in this park, especially if they have food on their table or barbecue. On one occasion a kookaburra snatched part of a sandwich from alongside my wife while we were eating lunch.
On another occasion, my grandchildren were stunned when a kookaburra snatched a cooked sausage right off of the hot plate of a barbecue. They certainly are both opportunistic and cheeky.
Please leave any comments about your encounters with kookaburras or close encounters with other bird species.
Happy birding,
Trevor
Eastern Yellow Robin
In my last post, I wrote about a short visit I had to the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney. This was during a visit to family in Artarmon. During that visit, I saw a good variety of birds, including the Eastern Yellow Robin shown in today’s photos.
This beautiful little robin lights up the woodlands when it shows itself out in the open, especially when it comes out of the shady parts and into the sunlight. This individual was very obliging and posed nicely for me. Sometimes photography can be like this and the bird cooperates.
Interestingly, the photos in this post were taken in the same spot as I managed my first ever sighting of a Rose Robin. These photos were taken immediately after the Rose Robin appeared, almost on the same branches of a tree near a small grassed glade in one of the picnic areas in the national park.
The Eastern Yellow Robin does not inhabit areas near my home in Murray Bridge in South Australia. In fact, I would have to drive for about two hours south to get into its normal range in the south-east of my state. The normal range of this species includes most of southern Victoria, the eastern half of New South Wales and up north through eastern Queensland. Another similar species, the Western Yellow Robin, is found in southern Western Australia through to the western part of South Australia (Eyre Peninsula).
Further reading:
At last – an Eastern Yellow Robin
A short visit to Lane Cove National Park
Laughing Kookaburras
Earlier this year I stayed with family in Artarmon for a while. This is a suburb in northern Sydney. During that time I took the opportunity to spend a few hours birding in the Lane Cove National Park, just a ten-minute drive from where I was staying. This has become one of my favourite birding spots and it is also a great place to get photos of some of the flora and fauna found right in the heart of a busy city.
One of the common birds in this national park would have to be the Laughing Kookaburra, shown in today’s photos. They are seen and heard all over the park, especially in and near to the many picnic areas. As we found out last year, the resident kookaburras are not slow at attempting to snatch food off picnic tables. one one occasion my wife had a sandwich on a plate on the side table of her folding chair and a cheeky kookaburra flew down and snatched it right off her plate. On another occasion, we were having a barbecue and a bold kookaburra swooped down and grabbed a sausage right off the hot plate where it was still cooking. It was promptly chased by several other kookaburras as it flew off into the forest in the midst of much squawking and carry-on.
At the northern part of the park, there is a short track leading to Tunks Hill Picnic Area. From here one can get good views over the national park in the direction of the Chatswood CBD. The picnic area has a shelter shed for picnics in wet weather, as well as well-kept toilets, barbecues and picnic tables.
