I have already mentioned the tangled mess of policies and procedures involved in the seemingly simple action of changing planes at the Sydney Airport during the late-pandemic era, a circumstance that added over two weeks of costly delays to the latter part of the Tour, something I certainly didn’t need at the time. When I finally had worked out the details of that process, and realized that I was permitted to stay in Australia for up to seventy-two hours, I decided to forgo my usual practice of taking the earliest possible connecting flight and instead stayed for an extra day, with the intent of using that additional time to pick up a few birds. I had been to New South Wales once before, during the first weeks of my previous long Tour. However, at that time I had been officially observing birds for only a handful of days, meaning I was definitely a novice, and on that occasion I had avoided the congestion of Sydney by taking an inland route through a more arid zone, and for those reasons I missed seeing many of the species that frequent that State.

This time I had one species in particular that I hoped to observe and eBird indicated that Centennial Park, not very far from the Airport hotel where I was staying, would be a good place to try, and would also be likely to yield some other nice birds. So, on that refreshingly un-hot morning, I grabbed a taxi to the park to see what I could find. It only took me a few minutes to realize that the Park was probably the birdiest place that I had been in many months, a situation that lifted my spirits tremendously. Not only were there many species that were new and interesting to me, but the numbers of individuals were impressively large, a characteristic that I remembered from my earlier stop in Australia, and in that often-crowded Park the birds had grown accustomed to humans wandering about and had adopted a less shy demeanor.

Right away things got off to a good start with Long-Billed Corella. Any time I can so easily add a new Parrot, I know that it will be a good day.

Because the Park has many ponds and other water features, instead of going directly after my main target I was occupied for a considerable time with the easy observations of new aquatic birds that they provided, such as Dusky Moorhen…

…Australasian Swamphen…

…Gray Teal…

…and Maned Duck.

It was also easy to spot some species that would be very ordinary for Sydney birders, but new for me, and the types of species that I really should have seen on my earlier Tour, such as Noisy Miner, and Superb Fairywren.

Next, I set out to look for my top target, which was said to be nesting in a swampy eucalyptus grove in the center of the Park. Unfortunately, the trail through the center of the area was very muddy, and the possible presence of the well-camouflaged birds I was seeking was effectively masked by the thousands of large Flying Foxes that were also roosting in the same area. Just as I had given up on seeing the birds I was primarily looking for, I happened upon two friendly gentlemen who were carrying the type of equipment that instantly labeled them as individuals who were also enjoying a fun morning of looking for birds. I was pleased that they let me tag along for a while, especially since they led me to locations and birds that I might not have otherwise seen, such as Pied Currawong…

…an amazing, but well-hidden, Channel-Billed Cuckoo…

…and a sleeping Powerful Owl.

Later, I observed another surprising miss from the earlier Tour, a diminutive example from one of my favorite groups, Australasian Grebe.

One of my new friends was Steve Howard a local man who often leads casual bird walks around Centennial Park. Anyone interested in seeing the many interesting and beautiful birds to be found in the Park should definitely get in touch with Steve. I was very lucky that I ran into him when I did, because moments later he showed me the one path into the swampy grove that wasn’t muddy, and that also happened to run right beneath the nesting site of the birds that brought me to the Park in the first place, Tawny Frogmouth, my first sighting from that family!

One final species, Fairy Martin, which only yielded a typically blurry photo, brought my total for just a few hours of effort, albeit with help, to thirteen new species, a much higher tally than I hoped for, or expected. This unplanned success did a lot to counteract the stress of making that transit happen at all. In fact, since I would need to transit through Sydney one more time, upon departure from the next destination, I had already begun seeking out another nearby location, one that would hopefully be equally productive, for a second quick sojourn a few weeks in the future.