Botany Bay National Park - Southern Emu-wren Country

Once again the shining bonnet of the Magna was pointed towards the south end of Sydney on an early Saturday morning. Again the destination was the scrubby bush covered coastal area between Kurnell and Boat Harbour, with a planned rendezvous with the Shasha + Amoore cycling team conveniently pit-stopping at the mangrove viewing platform few kilometers from Kurnell.

Flanked by an Eastern Curlew, some Bar-tailed Godwits, the little Solomon and once again an upbeat Sintic I was in great company, which was of great value, since apparently the peloton had started the morning stage at a rather leisurely speed.

Well worth the wait, the newlyweds were in fine fettle and the conversation very entertaining. As usual a volley of topics were dealt with in an appropriately humorous style, including sorting out the migration pathways of the various waders, the quality of old Nikon glass and more importantly where to go camping next weekend - amazing how a few minuets of face to face chat can solve what would otherwise need 15+ emails ;-)

As the peloton headed west, we took off towards the windswept coastal scrub - The land of the Southern Emu-wren! To shorten an already quite long story - "Yes" luck was once again smiling our way! Sintic saw his Albatross ... next time it will hopefully be less than 1 kilometer away :-D But more importantly we had excellent views of first a single male Southern Emu-wren and later a brief, but close encounter with a pair.


Great guns - I had seen the SE-w before, but did not have a picture, so glad to sort that out. My two companions were equally thrilled and I am afraid a spark has ignited what will turn into a raging fire ;-)