Birdwatching in Centennial Park
A Corella peeking out from behind a wing
When we moved to Sydney last year I was most surprised by how integrated the city was with nature. Life in New York meant leaving the city to see nature, often driving a couple of hours to properly be in a forest. Here in Sydney, there's a lot of wildlife in general (read: brush turkeys walking down the street), but one of our favorite places to bird watch is Centennial Park near Paddington.
Centennial Park is a huge park with open spaces and a few large ponds. The most bird activity is by the ponds and it varies each time we're there. My favorite sighting were two Australian Pelicans swimming in the pond next to a large group of ducks (I just love pelicans!)
Purple Swamphen, Corellas, Pond in Park
Scattered in the trees along the fringes of the pond are often large groups of Little Corellas, although I was surprised to see a Long Billed Corella there last week. The Corellas are beautiful birds with pops of neon around their necks and bright blue patches around their eyes.
The Corella's have beautiful eyes, but I think the award for Best Eyes goes to the Hard Headed (White-Eye) Ducks at the park. They are striking, even from a distance.
Hard Headed (White Eye) Duck
Another feature of Centennial Park are the resident flying foxes. There is a large colony of hundreds that live there during the day then roam the city at night. I have to admit, I was a bit startled when I came across the flying foxes as I wasn't expecting them, but was excited to see so many up close.
If you do get a chance to do some bird watching in Centennial Park, drop a line and let us know what you saw! Here is a list of our favorite birds to spot at the park:
1) Australian Pelican
2) Darter
3) Purple Swamphen
4) Dusky Moorhen
5) White-Faced Heron
6) Little Egret
7) Black Swan
8) Pacific Black Duck
9) Australian Wood Duck
10) Great Cormorant
11) Pied Cormorant
12) Hardhead Duck
13) Little Pied Cormorant
14) Australian White Ibis
15) Australasian Grebe
16) Little Black Cormorant
17) Masked Lapwing
18) Grey Butcherbird
19) Kookaburra
20) Australian Raven
21) Little Corella
22) Long-billed Corella
23) Crested Pidgeon
24) Magpie-Lark
25) Magpie
26) Willie Wagtail
27) Welcome Swallow
28) Tree Martin
29) Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
30) Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (May)
31) Rainbow Lorikeet
32) Eurasian Coot
33) Pied Currawong
Let us know what you see!
Cheers,
Stephanie + Amy