Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Gardens, Sydney
Australian Brush-turkey
One of our favourite places to visit when in Sydney staying with family is the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Gardens on Mona Vale road at St Ives. These gardens are adjacent to the Ku-ring-gai National Park, another great place to visit. These gardens are about a half hour drive from my son’s home so it is a convenient place to visit when we are in Sydney.
The gardens are typical bushland of the area with some areas set aside for picnic grounds. The Friends of the Gardens group also plant and maintain a few small areas displaying plants of the area but not actually present in the gardens. The group frequently put on a display of plants in flower in the Visitor Centre.
I have found that the bird life in the gardens can vary greatly according to the season and what is flowering at the time. On occasions I have been very disappointed with my list. On our most recent visit in July of this year I was pleasantly surprised. The only downside was getting only one good bird photo – that of the Australian Brush-turkey shown above. So instead, I have included some of my flower photos instead.
Here is a list of the birds I saw or heard, in the order recorded:
- Australian Brush-turkey
- Eastern Whipbird
- Weebill
- Rainbow lorikeet
- Noisy Miner
- Pied Currawong
- Grey Butcherbird
- Silvereye
- Striated Pardalote
- Grey Fantail
- Variegated Wren
- Eastern Yellow Robin
- Yellow-faced Honeyeater
- Striated Thornbill
- Spotted Pardalote
- Laughing Kookaburra
- White-browed Scrubwren
- White-throated Treecreeper
- Brown Cuckoo-dove
Banksia Flowers
Lewin’s Honeyeater
Lewin’s Honeyeater, Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden, Sydney
On our recent visit to Sydney to stay with family, my wife and I took out an afternoon to visit the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden near St Ives. we’d been here on a number of other occasions and usually enjoyed the visit.
The gardens are open daily from 8am to 5pm and are accessed off Mona Vale Road. There is no entry fee and the education centre is available for functions for a fee. Extensive walking trails and picnic areas make this a very attractive place to visit, especially for birders and native plant enthusiasts like my wife.
Over a number of visits I have sometimes been a little disappointed with the bird life, but mostly it is quite good. The thick vegetation allows a wide range of small bush birds to hide in safety, but this sometimes can cause a little frustration identifying them, and especially challenging for photography. It was with delight then, that I captured reasonable shots of a Lewin’s Honeyeater. It posed for my camera for several minutes, perching on an exposed branch in range of my lens.
This species is found along the eastern coastal regions of Australia. This was a particularly pleasing sighting as I’ve only ever seen it on several previous occasions.
Lewin’s Honeyeater, Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden, Sydney
Lewin’s Honeyeater, Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden, Sydney