After our adventure in Zamboanga, Nikki and I returned to Sorsogon, where we spent another week at home before once again I had to go to the US. This was my third attempt at moving "home", and it lasted slightly longer than the other two attempts–which is to say that I made it all of six weeks or so before flying back to Asia once more. Mid December and here I am writing this blog from Sorsogon once again, so I guess it's fair to say that the move to the US is still a work in progress.
I spent November in DC for the most part, with a couple of trips to Michigan. I did do some birding along the way, though it was mostly just low-key local stuff and keeping up me eBird checklist streak rather than proper birding trips. It's the sort of thing I'd probably do a blog post on if I wasn't already grotesquely behind with blog posts and attempting to catch up by the end of the year.
All that said, skip ahead to early December, when I was once more back in the Philippines. I hadn't intended to be back this soon, but sadly a family emergency brought me back earlier than expected. With me already in Asia, the powers that be at the office decided that they might as well send me on yet another work trip. This time the destination wasn't Indonesia or Cambodia as usual, but Fiji of all places. In the end I only had a few days in the Philippines to spend time with my wife and recover from a grueling 24-hour plane trip from Washington DC before I was jetting off once again bound for Fiji.
Manila and Fiji aren't particularly far apart as the albatross flies, and it wouldn't be a very long trip if there were direct flights. There aren't of course, and instead all the flight options take at least 18 hours. This time I was transiting through Sydney, where I arrived in the mid-morning. My flight to Fiji was four hours later, so the logical thing to do would have been to just chill out in the airport and catch up on sleep or work, perhaps looking for birds from the window.
I'm not a logical person though, so instead what I did was make a beeline for immigration and dash out to find a taxi to the nearest park for an hour of birding. This was partly because I was required to get an Australian visa even to transit through, which required an unnecessarily arduous online application (do I really need to send pictures of every page of my passport?). I figured that if I was going to go to all that effort, I might as well actually enter the country. It was also because I hadn't been to Australia in years, and I wanted the chance to catch up with some of its unbeatable avifauna even if it was quick.
After doing some asking around on facebook, I settled on visiting Centennial Park, one of Sydney's biggest parks and located conveniently close to the airport. Although I had been in Sydney back in 2018 with Nikki I hadn't done too much birding while I was there, so this was a new spot for me. I cleared Customs as quickly as I could, got something caffeinated to drink, and immediately booked an Uber to take me to the park. My driver was a nice Central Asian women who blasted house music the entire drive, which I suppose was just what I needed to get me in the mood for a hectic morning. I also managed to see a few Australian birds along the way- a Red Wattlebird perched up in a tree, a flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos flying overhead, and best of all an Australian White Ibis, the famous bin chicken.
I hopped out of the car as soon as it pulled up to a spot where I could walk into the park, and immediately started looking for as many birds as I could. There was a small group of beautiful Australasian Figbirds calling in the trees right above where I got out (none of them posing for a picture sadly), and across the street was a group of Little Corellas preening and giving the occasional cockatoo scream. The biggest surprise was my only lifer of the day- a pair of Pacific Koels perching quietly in a little araucaria tree near the road! They were much tamer (and quieter) than the Asian Koels I was used to, and it was nice to get at least one new bird after all that effort.
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| Australasian Figbird |
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| Little Corella |
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| Pacific Koel |
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| The scenery at Centennial Park |
Koels aside, most of the birds I saw around were the usual Australian trash birds, which was fine because nowhere in the world does trash birds better than Australia. There were Noisy Miners all over, foraging in the grass and in gardens and feeding fledgling birds up in the trees. A few Australian Magpies were hanging out in the lawn as well, and next to one of the park's many ponds were lots of Dusky Moorhens, Eurasian Coots, Australasian Swamphens, and Masked Lapwings, while in the water were some Black Swans, Australasian Grebes, Grey Teals and Pacific Black Ducks with their impressive face patterns. A flock of gorgeous Rainbow Lorikeets flew overhead, though they never perched in view for a picture. I heard the surprisingly melodious song of a Grey Butcherbird and found one perched in a distant tree, and another bin chicken made an appearance as well.
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| Baby Noisy Miners getting fed |
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| Fun fact: Noisy Miners got their name because the early Australian colonizers didn't know how to spell "myna" |
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| Australian Magpie: not an actual magpie, but still great fun to watch |
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| Australasian Swamphen |
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| Masked Lapwing: cool birds, but like most lapwings (and most Australian wildlife) prone to attack humans if they get too close |
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| Australasian Grebe |
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| Pacific Black Duck |
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| Grey Butcherbird- impressive songsters whose behavior is just as vicious as the name implies |
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| Australian White Ibis, a.k.a. Bin Chicken |
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| Australian Forktail |
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| Narrow-brand Grass Dart |
I noticed some flapping around in a nearby stand of trees, and looking with my binoculars realized it was a huge colony of flying foxes! These turned out to be Grey-headed Flying Foxes, the largest bat in Australia and in decline due to extreme heat events and persecution from humans. This colony seemed to be doing pretty well though, and it was fun watching them hanging out, grooming, and doing the usual bat things. Walking through the little wooded area I also saw a few Pied Currawong and a single Willie Wagtail devouring a cicada. As I exited I found a little group of Superb Fairywrens, one of the birds I'd most been hoping to catch up with on my layover. I didn't get great pictures, but I'll never pass up the chance to see fairywrens.
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| Grey-headed Flying Foxes |
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| Pied Currawong |
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| The cicada is called a Silver Princess (Yoyetta celis), which must be the result of an incredible PR campaign from the cicada lobby |
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| Willy Wagtail (a fantail not a wagtail, because Australian bird namers are much better in the creativity department than the taxonomy department) |
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| Superb Fairywren |
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| These flowers are apparently called Cock's Eggs (Salpichroa origanifolia) which uh, no comment |
I'd been out and about birding for about 45 minutes by then, which annoyingly enough was all I had time for before I had to return to the airport and catch my flight to Fiji. I settled down by a nice little pond and did some birding while I waited for my Uber. There were some adorable Maned Ducks hanging out in the pond, and a cormorant nesting colony with many Little Pied Cormorants, Little Black Cormorants, and Australian Pied Cormorants flying around with sticks for their nests. I had quick flyovers from a White-faced Heron and some Silver Gulls, nice additions to my year list. There were some Black Swans in the pond, and next to it a flock of feral domestic geese going around and terrorizing runners who got too close. Just another episode in the long history of Australians losing fights to birds I suppose.
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| Maned Duck |
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| Australian Pied Cormorant |
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| Local geese getting ready to commit crimes |
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| Another Centennial Park pond, with Black Swan and Pacific Black Duck |
My Uber soon arrived, and it was back to the airport to check in and board my flight to Fiji. I did enough waiting around once I got there that I probably could have spent another half hour in the park, but when it comes to international flights it's best not to cut things too close. It was still a great hour or so of birding, and I got one lifer and 29 new year birds including some great Australia specialties. I had great aerial views of Sydney and Royal National Park as I flew out, and then it was onwards to Fiji. That will be its own monstrosity of a blog post, but I have about 11,000 pictures to edit first...
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| Sydney from above |
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| Royal National Park |
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