You are browsing the archives of sydney.

Earlier in the year we featured parrots in a themed series of posts on 10,000 Birds (the posts can all be found via the Parrot Month tag). Part of my own motivation for actually running a Parrot Month was an earlier realisation that despite my extensive travelling over the last twenty years I’ve hardly seen [...]

The Grey Teal Anas gracilis - not perhaps the most spectacular of the world’s anatidae it has to be said - is found in open wetlands in New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Sexes are alike. In Australia it is nomadic, rapidly colonising suitable habitat following rain: conversely in 1957 large [...]

The Australian White Ibis Threskiornis molucca is one of the first birds that visitors (even non-birding visitors) to Sydney tend to notice first. Historically rare in urban areas, the Australian White Ibis was bred and released at Taronga Zoo and has now spread throughout urban areas in ever-increasing numbers. It is now common in the [...]

I recently posted some photos of Pacific Black Ducks Anas superciliosa that I took in Sydney’s Centennial Park (where I also - at last - managed to get some good photos of Tawny Frogmouths). Several other interesting species are easy to see in the park (easier than in many other situations where the birds aren’t [...]

Found in much of Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and many islands in the southwestern Pacific the Pacific Black Duck Anas superciliosa is closely related to the Mallard A. platyrhynchos (some female Mallards can closely approach the head pattern of a Pacific Black Duck), and in many respects is the Mallard’s southern equivalent. Unlike [...]

The rather lovely Hardhead Aythya australis is the only true diving duck found in Australia, and will be immediately recognisable to birders familiar with eg the Ferruginous Duck as an aythya pochard. Common in the south-east of Australia, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, they are moderately nomadic in normal years, but disperse widely in times [...]

I’m just back from working on a quick trip to Sydney (Australia) via Bangkok. Three things happened that made the trip really notable. The first was that I worked with a crew member who was born AFTER I started working for the airline (it had to happen but it’s a slap in the wrinkled face [...]

Fantastic birding in Malaysia and Singapore is only part of the story when I’m on a trip that also involves visiting Sydney, Australia of course - even if said “visiting” amounts to little more than having the day I arrive after an eight hour flight available, plus the following morning before flying back to Singapore [...]

Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus
Cetennial Park, Sydney. March 2006 and March 2008
 
Worldwide there are, depending on the authority, six or more subspecies of the large and rather primitive-looking Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio - a bird breeding in reed beds across southernmost Europe, Africa, tropical Asia, and Australasia - which differ mainly in the plumage colours. [...]

Crested Pigeon Ocyphaps lophotes
Centennial Park, Sydney, Australia. March 2008
 
The beautiful Crested Pigeon is endemic to Australia and is common in lightly wooded grasslands, watercourses, pastoral areas, sports grounds/golf courses and parks in both rural and urban areas throughout most of the mainland. It is usually found in the vicinity of water, as it has to [...]

Masked Lapwing, Sydney, Australia
Various dates

The Masked Lapwing Vanellus miles (once more-widely known as the Masked Plover) is common throughout northern, central and eastern Australia. It inhabits marshes, mudflats, beaches and grasslands and is often seen in urban areas and parks. Where this species is used to human presence, it may allow a close approach (the [...]

Sydney Botanic Gardens, Australia, 26 February 2006
 

 
I only get down to Australia once or twice a year, so why - it would be reasonable to ask - would I bother spending time in a Botanic Gardens I’ve been to many times before?

Well, I may get to Australia twice a year, but I only get to [...]

Sulphur-crested Cockatoos Cacatua galerita, one of the largest parrots in the world, are common and very familiar in parts of Australia. Their range extends throughout the northern and eastern mainland and Tasmania. A small population has become established around Perth, Western Australia. The species also occurs in New Guinea and the Aru Islands, and has [...]

Rockwarbler Origma solitaria
Royal National Park, Sydney, Australia
 
The Rockwarbler Origma solitaria (or Origma) is restricted to the sandstone formations around the Sydney region of New South Wales. It is a dark brown-grey bird with a cinnamon-tinged face and forehead, a dull white throat speckled black (which often appears quite dark in the field), reddish-brown [...]

Eastern Yellow Robin Eopsaltria australis
Royal National Park, Sydney, and Sherbrooke Forest, Melbourne, Australia

The Eastern Yellow Robin Eopsaltria australis is distributed from the extreme southeast corner of South Australia through most of Victoria and the western half of New South Wales and north as far as Cooktown. Tropical northern Queensland birds are mainly restricted to the [...]

Dusky Moorhen Gallinula tenebrosa
Sydney and Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Various dates.
 
The Dusky Moorhen Gallinula tenebrosa occurs in Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia. New Guinea birds are smaller, at 25-32cm in length, than the Australian race (35-40 cm, 55-65 cm wingspan). In Indonesia, it is losing ground to the closely related Common Moorhen Gallinula chloropus on those [...]

Royal National Park, Sydney, Australia
14 October 2005
 

Bridge over the Hacking River, Royal National Park, near Sydney

 
The wonderful Royal National Park, an expansive area of rainforest and heath covering some 15000ha, is just off the Prince’s Highway and only 15 miles (22km) from Sydney International Airport. Dedicated in 1879, it’s Australia’s oldest NP (and the second [...]