What's at Watsons Bay?

Another pleasant day trip the other day, by ferry from Circular Quay down the Harbour to Watsons Bay.

Watsons Bay beach

The view from Laings Point

The famous Doyles on the Beach seafood restaurant. 

Heading back

Count me!

It's been Aussie Backyard Bird Count Week again, and yours truly has been doing his bit. In my case it involves sitting on my roof (I love my roof), for 20 minutes at a time, noting down all the birds that turn up in my field of view.

It goes like this. Noisy Miner, Noisy Miner, ...........Kookaburra, Noisy Miner, Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, ..........a wattle bird or two, .........and what were those little things flitting overhead so quick?  And then another Noisy Miner.

The results go online immediately, and 2017 statistics can be viewed here:  https://aussiebirdcount.org.au/statistics/

The full 2016 results are here: https://aussiebirdcount.org.au/2016-results/
Australia-wide, the rankings were: 1. Rainbow Lorikeet, 2. Noisy Miner, 3. Australian Magpie. Within New South Wales, it was: 1. Rainbow Lorikeet, 2. Noisy Miner, 3. Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo.

I was rigorous with my timings, and of course found that the most interesting birds appeared just after the 20 minutes was up. Look at this beautiful and amazingly cheeky King Parrot, who turned up yesterday to check out our back patio (and me), during a non-counting period.

An arts festival, Hornsby style

No opera to be heard, or old or new masters' canvases there. And the performing arts on show involved cheery ladies on stilts or people wandering around in green dragon costumes.

Great fun though, and perfect for the Saturday shopping crowds in Hornsby.


There were in fact painting workshops going on for the kids, and several local arts and crafts groups were there to sell their wares and advertise their deeds.

Saturday's activities were just an introduction to the event proper.

There was music too, like that of this jazz band. Or from the very tall musical lady below.

The festival actually goes on for a month, I've just discovered, and there really is some serious culture and a range of creative enterprise planned. See http://www.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/my-lifestyle/arts-and-culture/festival-of-the-arts/festival-of-the-arts-2017-eoi

Life's hell when raising koel

A large mystery bird was lurking in the bottlebrush tree out front, and a pair of much smaller little wattlebirds were fluttering around it.

It turned out to be a juvenile koel. The koel, the adult male of which is a sleek jet black colour, is a type of cuckoo, that flies in every spring from New Guinea and Indonesia, to wake us early in the morning. "Ko-el" it calls, noisily and at length.


Our youngster had been raised by the poor wattlebirds, its mother having laid an egg in their nest. On hatching, the little darling had despatched its step-siblings and set about making its foster parents' lives a nightmare of foraging and feeding.

It was still there at 4am the next morning. "Tweet tweet tweet" was all it could manage, but it still managed to wake me up. It moved on later in the day.

Pyramid Rock

It was destination Pyramid Rock for our adventure bushwalking group the other day. It's one of a number of rocky giant boulder pagoda things sticking up out of the tree cover in the Carne Creek area of the Gardens of Stone National  Park - one of our very favourite stamping grounds.

You start from Fire Trail No.7 off Glowworm Tunnel Rd, and you take a good look at your destination way below the cliff line.

Fortunately there's a (relatively) easy way down through the cliffs. It's called Miracle Slot, as it's a miracle that it takes you right down to the bottom of the cliff, rather than leaving you hanging somewhere half way down.

An hour or two later we'd trudged across to the site of the pyramids. We first scaled the slightly lesser (and easier) one immediately to the south of the 'Great Pyramid', to admire the views.

One of the views was of this rather large (and unfriendly looking) lace monitor. He stood his ground while we photographed him, rather than running up a tree or one of us, as they can sometimes do.



















Then it was time to tackle Pyramid Rock proper. Not an insignificant climb, and only one of  our members made it to the top.

Then he had to make it down again, choosing a possibly more challenging route still.









Returning to the cliffs, we explored various scenic caves and ledges, before heading back up to the cars.

Another stunning bushwalkers' day out!

Redfern rainbows

Exploring some of my old haunts in Sydney's Inner West today, I was struck by the presence of so many rainbow flags and 'Vote Yes' signs around the place.

The referendum, sorry, plebiscite, sorry, non-binding postal survey, on same-sex marriage is underway, and the suburbs of Redfern, Newtown, and Marrickville would have to be Yes Central.

I'd not had strong views about this until the ultra-conservatives got in on the act, and did their usual thing of twisting, turning, and manipulating the decision-making process into a form that would maximise the chance of usurping the public's well-documented overwhelming approval of the reform. They're assuming that younger voters, the strongest 'yes' supporters, will be unlikely to figure out how to use the postal service, especially if it's an uncharacteristically non-compulsory vote.

It's rather reminiscent of how then Prime Minister John Howard managed to subvert the push for a republic 20 years ago, by framing the referendum question in a form of words that successfully divided the republicans and reversed the expected outcome.

So if the ultra-conservatives are against allowing same-sex marriage, I guess I'm for allowing it. Results aren't due for another month. My prediction is there will be a majority 'Yes' vote, but it will be close enough that the rabid naysayers in Federal Parliament will say the majority isn't clear enough, and they'll have to vote no in parliament anyway.

Cromer Heights delights

'Cromer Heights delights' was the name aptly chosen by one of my bushwalking companions recently for her outing to the Northern Beaches bushland  inland from Dee Why, Collaroy, and Narrabeen.

I'd never explored this area properly before, so I was suitably delighted.

There was a large coloured rock platform, providing some rather convincing aerial views of the surface of Mars.

And another rock platform with aboriginal carvings, like this ancestral being one, I think.

We started our walk at Dee Why, and finished at Narrabeen, with the last section being along the recently renovated Narrabeen Lagoon circumnavigation track.



A fine day out, as ever.

More sun and moon

I got the big telescope fired up again the other day. It's been a while, but the size and weight of the thing can be a bit off-putting.

The sun's still full of major sunspots, despite it being a few years past the predicted maximum in its 11-year cycle.

Solar viewing and photography all done with proper solar filter in place of course. Never try this sort of thing without one.

And the moon was as spectacular as ever. Of course we now know there are lots of other bodies in the solar system that look rather like the moon - and lots that look quite different too. All amazing to behold, in their own ways.






Another technical note: with my cassegrain with prism eyepiece connector, things appear both upside down and back to front. If you're a competent moon-navigator and got disoriented, that's why.