One of the slightly frustrating  aspects of our Great World Birding Adventure itinerary has been that, having spent a week around Darwin on the north coast of Australia -well on our way to our final destination of Thailand, we had to fly four hours back to Sydney to pick up our international flight to Bangkok. So yesterday we spent nearly half the nine and a half hour flight flying the breadth of Australia, over Darwin, to Thailand!  All this necessitated an over night in Sydney so, having been there before, we knew that the Botanical Gardens (apart from being very beautiful in themselves) were a birding hot spot and a potential location for Powerful Owl.

Thus we were up early for a wholesome breakfast and a good meander around the park. Nothing of great note on our way to the cafe – it was raining quite heavily at the time, just the usual city species like Chestnut-banded Rail, Dusky Moorhen, Little Pied Cormorant. At the cafe I engaged a friendly park ranger in conversation, who informed me that if we went to the trees, close to Government House, there was a fair chance of an ‘owl encounter’.  We strolled up to the spot she kindly marked on the map and there, high in the tree was indeed a splendid Powerful Owl – complete with dead Possum in it’s talons! Only problem was that, partly sceptical of the possibility of seeing such a creature in the centre of Sydney and not wanting to look too conspicuous carrying my long lens, I didn’t take my camera! I ‘hot hoof’ back to the hotel for the camera but the result was worth it – hope you agree!

Dawn is just breaking here in Bang Na, the Bangkok suburb where Neil & Eunice have their lovely apartment…got to get the Thai bird list started!