Down Town Sydney by Night

It has been a while since I was running around doing touristy stuff here in Sydney - probably not since my action-packed excursion to Watson bay for fish and chips have I ticked any of the touristy hot spots of this wonderful city ;-)

Having a few guests flying in during the next couple of month, I realized I was in desperate need for a guide-skill-refresher so why not head down town Sydney and rub shoulders with some proper camera-slinging overseas visitors, just to get the hang of it again ... and since my American visitor has grown quite fond of the feathered wildlife I could probably score a plus in the book by already pinpointing the favorite tree of the barn owl flying around down town Sydney ;-)

The trees down town Sydney support a surprisingly large amount of wildlife, which makes it hard to find the owl you are after, but easy to get photos of all kinds of other stuff :-)
I though I had nailed it when I got a high ISO + flash shot of something in the top of a palm tree just to realize that it was a juvenile Australian white Ibis when looking at the LCD screen :-D It is not everyday you are in the bush you see possums - Saturday night a member of that family was so keen on me that I think I could have lured it all the way back to Coogee if I had brought a bit of food :-D

Well, well - who would have thought the Barn version would be harder to see that the super duper easy to find Grass cousin...? ;-)
Quite exciting running around with a camera at night in a place like Sydney, I got into the arty mood and found some motifs that did not turn their back to the camera.

Think I understand why people like a good tripod, the next picture was taken by finding a solid stand for the camera and having a shutter speed of 25s. The observant reader will notice that the head of the statue is missing(!) Suggesting that I either need a movable solid stand instead of relying on rocks-on-site or significantly more lens "flexibility" than I get with my fixed focal length 50mm f/1.8. :-)