After that I have been traveling, I often end up revisiting many of my old favorite spots close to Sydney. Being slightly beaten up by jetlag, full up of exploring foreign territories and often running out of memory card space ;-) it is very convenient to just go and have a bit of a relax in one of Sydney's not so busy backyard - Botany Bay National Park, specifically the area between Boat Harbour and Cape Solander, qualifies for that.
Apart from delivering some good bushwalking and great vistas, it is a fantastic spot for some lazy birding and it gives the visitor a chance of seeing one of the cutest small birds Sydney has to offer; Southern Emu-wren - Botany Bay was where I saw my first SE-w and it proved to still be the spot. Get a bit away from the coast into the scrubby parts of the heathland, keep the camera ready and listen for high pitched wren chirps and you might get lucky :-) This time I got onto a female SE-w exposing itself to a bit of afternoon sun for about 20 seconds (top photo) not bad at all.
Great blue sky, Cockatoos flying above and some opportunistic plants flowering despite of the calender showing mid winter. Sydney is not to shabby a place to live :-)
It is possible to cover the full stretch from Cape Solander to Boat Harbour and back in a few hours, it is even possible doing it while birding, but depending on the activity of the feathered inhabitants it can take you most of an afternoon. I expected Boat harbour to be fairly quiet mid August, it is just a bit too early for the arrival of all the exotic waders, so I decided to cut the walk short and save some energy for later in the year. It could very well be the right time of year just now to release some of that energy - the internet is full of rumors about good waders around and there is a few of them that I still need to see. :-)
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