Since our New Year’s Day ‘Big Sit’ the weather has deteriorated dramatically, with strong winds and heavy, occasionally torrential, rain. Apparently we’re heading for a 1 in 50 year/24 hour event! – it’s  just like being at home! As a consequence, our birding activities have been severely curtailed. We have managed to visit a few good sites in the Lower Hunter, pushing our trip total to 170 and nudging my Hunter list up to 280, but that’s about it. Yesterday we even went to the cinema to watch a Disney film with the grandkids..! Today, flooding permitting, we leave Newcastle for a short trip up the NSW coastal belt, as far as Port Macquarie – hoping to meet up with some friends and do a bit of birding on the way but, as the rain continues to lash down, the latter looks increasingly unlikely.

Here are a few randomly chosen photos of some of the local birds we’ve come across so far:

Little Black Cormorant – with it’s amazing ‘cork-screw’ neck

Black-fronted Dotterel

Grey-crowned Babbler

The always delightful male Zebra Finch

A small selection of waterbirds at Stockton sand-spit, including Royal Spoonbill, Black-winged Stilt & Gull-billed Tern. We saw 15 species of wader and five Terns..

White-plumed Honeyeater

Rufous Songlark

Restless Flycatcher

That’s all for now, we’ll be ‘off-line’ for a few days but more blogging at the weekend – prior to what I hope will be a memorable pelagic on Sunday!