Back to the Landing Lights Wetland

With the forecast for rain later this week the best thing to do was to head out in the sunshine on Tuesday to have a better look at the Landing Lights Wetland, near Sydney Airport. This very productive site has quite a reputation and it proved a very worthwhile visit.

There were a number of Golden-headed Cisticolas calling and it looked like some nest building was underway.

Also calling was this Australian Reed-Warbler.

A feature of the site is the number of small birds including this Yellow-rumped Thornbill.

The honeyeaters were represented by a number of Brown Honeyeaters and there were also White-plumed Honeyeaters around.

A Yellow Thornbill, difficult to photograph as they prefer to frequent the tops of trees.

Also calling and making the briefest of appearances, the Buff-banded Rail.

Landing Lights Wetland near Sydney Airport

I made my first visit to the Landing Lights Wetland near Sydney Airport last week. These wetlands are one of the few remnants of saline wetland on the Cook River that flows into Botany Bay. The site contains threatened salt-marsh ecosystem and is under restoration by the Bayside Council and many volunteers. Both mangroves and weeds have been removed to encourage the salt-marsh. The site attracts a variety of water birds, migrants and others with over 150 species listed on the Ebird list. On my short stay I saw Chestnut Teal, Black-winged Stilts, White-faced Herons, many Red-browed Finches, New Holland Honeyeaters as well as magpies, starlings, white ibis and Magpie-larks.

The later afternoon light casts impressionistic hews over these Chestnut Teal at Landing Lights Wetland near Sydney Airport.