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A stroll around Westleigh with my camera the other afternoon yielded an extraordinary count of bird species.It just goes to show what you can do when you keep your eyes open. I've always been a little bit of a twitcher, but that day I saw two or three types I've never consciously come across before - and successfully photographed them, what's more. As well as most of the old favourites.
My list:
Noisy Miner, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Masked Lapwing, Crested Pigeon, Variegated Fairy-wren, Australian Raven, Galah, Rainbow Lorikeet, Red-browed Firetail, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Laughing Kookaburra, Lewin's Honeyeater, Brown Thornbill, Golden Whistler (male & female), Crimson Rosella, King Parrot, Samphire Thornbill (probably not - it'd be 1000km out of its range), and another unknown small brown bird.
Let me know if I've misidentified any, and do help me out with my small browns - there are an awful lot of these, and they're usually shy and flighty.
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I've been doing the reconnaisance for my next 42km marathon walk, and today I checked out the section from St Ives to Roseville Bridge. It's mainly in the Garigal National Park, along the Harbour to Hawkesbury Trail, and it's all rather pretty.
Along the way I met several of the locals. There was a big goanna, who did his goanna thing, running up a tree.
There was a huge, fabulous diamond python, who ignored me entirely while lazily crossing the track, lowering himself down the bank to the creek, and swimming gracefully across to the other side.
Then a splendid water dragon jumped out of his skin, and me out of mine, when our paths unexpectedly crossed. He too swam across the creek, though rather more quickly than the snake had.
The biggest drama of all though was played out in a street in St Ives. A big strapping Australian Raven was standing his ground against a whole squadron of noisy miners, in defence of the stash of bread crumbs he'd found on the road. The miners took it in turns to strafe and dive bomb him, screaming their noisy threats, and at times co-ordinating their attacks and making him look rather concerned and putting him right off his feeding. But he held his ground, and when I left, he was still winning on points.
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