Bird books ain't bird books - and a tale of three wattlebirds

My best Christmas present this year was a new bird guide. The 2012 (ninth) edition of Pizzey's 'Birds of Australia', no less.

I already had two well thumbed, trusty books at my disposal: the 1981 Pizzey, and Simpson & Day's 'Field Guide to the Birds of Australia' (fourth edition, 1993). So why would I want another?

Well the Simpson & Day had been leading me astray with its wattlebirds. It said there was the Little Wattlebird in WA, the Yellow Wattlebird in Tas, and in Sydney it said we got the Red Wattlebird and the Brush Wattlebird. Yet I kept hearing references to Little Wattlebirds in Sydney. What was going on?


Pizzey had no Brush Wattlebirds gracing its pages. And we got the Little Wattlebird in Sydney. The big disadvantage with my old Pizzey was that the picture pages had all the birds bunched close together, and these, as well as the descriptions and the distribution maps were all in totally different sections of the book, which was a real pain.

All was revealed re the great wattlebird conundrum recently when I heard that the Brush and Little Wattlebirds had now been reclassified as the same species. There's no longer a Brush Wattlebird, and yes, it really is the Little Wattlebird here.

And pages 386 and 387 of my new Pizzey are devoted entirely to the three Australian wattlebirds. Pictures, maps, and descriptions are all there together now. All just as it should be! Good work Mr. Pizzey. (And Mr. Knight, the illustrator.)

Gooches Crater

Gooches Crater is a classic old favourite Blue Mountains bushwalk. It's a pleasant two or three hours in along the ridge tops north of Bell.

You start at the spot on Sandham Road just beyond the now unwelcoming private property that we used to be able to walk across. You sidle across to the east a few hundred metres, then join the good old main ridge track northwards.

After crossing the Wollangambe River (probably on a big fallen tree trunk), you clamber up again, and do a couple more kilometres northwards along another ridge. The tracks have become much harder to find, in the aftermath of the massive bushfire here three years ago (described here: 2013 adventure ) and under my expedition leadership, we wandered around a bit more than I'd hoped, before eventually finding our way into the Crater through the maze of hills and pagodas and ridges. It's not really a crater. It just looks like one.






















After lunch among the flannel flowers, we explored some nearby rock features, and then pioneered another route back, via Friday Canyon (as named by us on a previous expedition, pictured here), and Dargan Arch.











Another nice day out for the Thursday Surveyors!

Visiting Cape Horn (not the South American one) on a slow news day

Another excellent day out recently for my Thursday adventure bushwalking group. This time it was the Cape Horn area of the Gardens of Stone region.

Again lots of great views, cliff scrambles, pagoda formations, caves and overhangs etc.

Driving out was interesting. We took what we thought was the easier of the two dirt roads. Then we encountered the scariest bit of road I've ever been driven along. Massive holes and boulders, and a 30 degree downhill slope. Could this really be a road? Was it really navigable?






Most of the passengers got out and walked. Our intrepid driver refused to be cowed, and headed on down.

Then this!



(Actually no. There's a bit of media manipulation going on here. This must be one of those fake news sites we've heard about! The wreck was an entirely different vehicle, and we'd photographed it earlier in the day!)

Maiyingu Marragu

An excellent day out recently with my Thursday bushwalking explorers group! We went to the Maiyingu Marragu Aboriginal Place. It's a special area within the Newnes State Forest, just off the Wolgan Valley Rd, and it used to be known as Blackfellows Hand Reserve.

It's also part of the Gardens of Stone area, and in a future, better, world, it will be part of an enlarged Gardens of Stone National Park.

Here we are, heading on up the fire trail at the start of the walk.


The area is another bushwalkers' paradise - full of terrific rock formations, canyons, slots, caves, labyrinths, pagodas - the lot. A bit like the fabled Donkey Mountain down the road, but easier to get to and a bit more spread out.

The features have all been named (by our Bush Club friends) after places in the Indiana Jones films. So there's a Last Crusade Ravine, as well as a Holy Grail Ravine. There's a Temple Creek, a Labyrinth, and a Sacristy, and there's a wonderful area of spectacular pagodas: the Temples of Doom. We found a bathtub formation too, so we named that.

The best known feature of the area though, is the big rock overhang known as 'Blackfellows Hand Cave'. There are lots of fine examples of hand stencils to peruse.