Kazza the Blank One

4.8.26

A few weeks back I was having a crap day so the sweetie said I should leave work and go birdwatching with him.  Con said do it, so off I went.

This time we actually walked all the way around the pond.  It was cold and windy!

Hoary-headed grebe

Hardhead

Australasian grebe

Sacred ibis

Welcome swallows hovering in the wind looking for bugs

A small flock of pied currawongs were flitting around the tops of some trees

Red-browed finches

Fairy wren

Australasian grebe

Hardhead

Pacific black duck

12.4.26

We got a little way around the south-east side of the pond before turning back.  This was before I got my big lens, so I included a few of Stu's photos.

Stu's photo of an Australasian grebe

More grebes

Stu's photo of a hardhead

Hardhead

Cormorants

This faceoff between a raven and a little pied cormorant was pretty funny

Willie wagtail

Yellow-rumped thornbill

Crested pigeons

8.8.26

A nature reserve out the back of Symonston.

Black-faced cuckooshrike

Fairy wren

Eastern rosella!!

Noisy miner

Spotted pardalote

I've literally never seen rainbow lorikeets in Canberra before so this was pretty cool

Wood ducks

How cute are Australasian grebes??

8.8.26

On the way home from Callum Brae we stopped at Giralang Pond. Apparently straw-necked ibis had been coming there in the evenings to roost. We'd driven past a few times but not seen them.  This day we actually got out of the car, and just as we did three of them flew in, poked around the water for a bit, then went up into the trees to roost.  It was pretty dark but still managed some ok photos of them.

(This is just a regular sacred ibis (aka bin chicken), but it looked kinda cool anyway)

So yeah, super lucky timing!

22.8.26

Another trip to the Pinnacle.  Apparently a few different birds that Stu hasn't seen yet had been spotted there, so we went looking.  Didn't actually find any of them, oh well, but did find noisy friarbirds.

Apparently a weebill

Crimson rosellas

(not eastern rosellas.. I've watched this video a bunch of times.. so cool!)

Magpie

Willie wagtails

At the top of the Pinnacle we heard something new and Merlin wasn't being helpful.  It called for ages and ages but stayed well hidden.  We followed it all the way down the hill through about three trees before we finally saw it properly - a noisy friarbird!

Noisy friarbird

At one point we stopped and the robins and thornbills were everywhere.  And a grey shrike-thrush.

Grey shrike-thrush

Scarlet robin (male)

Scarlet robin (female)

Buff-rumped thornbills

Yellow-rumped thornbills

And there were some more noisy friarbirds but only saw one of them.

Sunday.  16th.  Got a popup alert about some disk error. !! Found this in event logs:

Volume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume5) needs to be taken offline for a short time to perform a Spot Fix. Please run "CHKDSK /SPOTFIX" locally via the command line, or run "REPAIR-VOLUME <drive:>" locally or remotely via PowerShell.

So I did that.. but makes you wonder what went wrong..

Stu ordered Chong Co for dinner.. whoops. Very yummy though. MacGyver and early night.

Monday.  Slept somewhat okish, a bit broken. Depressed about having to go back to work. Started working on some dashboards then the BS started. Sigh. Awful day all up. Leftover Chong Co for dinner, a birdwatching video on birding hotspots in Newcastle, then selected photos from the ~900 I took to blog.

Tuesday to Friday.  It's been a week. So busy and so much BS at work it's soul destroying. After work it's just been blog posting. So pretty much no time or energy for anything else.

I did take this photo of the only daffodil I'm probably going to get this year..

And had a very nice lunch at the Labor Club with Neil and DC on Wednesday.

Kiev!

I was so full from that I didn't need much dinner - Stu made these super yummy cheesy stuffed mushrooms.

And so far the only photo I've taken of wattle this year..

Friday.  Kievs for dinner then watched White Christmas (Black Mirror). I really like this episode, although I find a couple of bits in it highly disturbing. One interpretation of Hell is just being completely alone for eternity. This would be just like that.

Saturday.  Restless legs, took a while to get to sleep. Didn't get a whole lot done in the morning.

The other day when I was trying to figure out the trig I saw from Sherwood Forest I found Parks ACT has a site listing all the publicly accessible trigs in the ACT. I suggested to Stu that maybe we could incorporate trig walks into our bird walks.. :)

After lunch we went out to the Pinnacle again because there were a few birds that had been spotted there that Stu wanted to see. We didn't see those but did find a few noisy friarbirds that Stu hadn't seen in the ACT (and I don't know that I've ever seen). My guts decided they weren't happy half way through so that made for a fun walk back to the car.

Red-necked wallaby

Eastern grey kangaroo

View over Whitlam to Woden

Trig 1 - Mt Painter

View to Woden

Me on top of the Pinnacle

View over Denman Prospect to Mt Tennant

Pinnacle panorama

Trig 2 - I couldn't figure this trig out but I think it's at -35.293641 149.009954

Trig 3 - I think this is the Walker Hill trig taken from the other side of the hill that I took it from last weekend

Bird watcher

Black Mountain Tower

Not much else for the rest of the afternoon and we may have had tv dinners for dinner. Then we watched Project Hail Mary, which was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it (except for the arrival - just turn then engines off and you're in orbit? What about deceleration? Edit: apparently the first half of the trip was accelerating and the second half was decelerating, which also explains why there was gravity until they stopped.  And the whole picking up the language in like five minutes).  (I'm reminded of Rocheworld with a similarish story and how they use computers and mathematics to learn to communicate).

Sunday.  Slightly more productive day, but not by much.  We did have this little adventure.  As we were backing out to go food shopping Stu thought the car felt lopsided.  So we got out and found the rear left tyre was flat. 

!!!!

I don't think I would have had the strength to get the wheel nuts off (or back on again) and we needed a hammer to whack the bolt thingie on tight enough to turn them.

I suspect this..

We went and checked all the pressures after doing our food shopping - the spare was at 9 PSI.. !!  I just checked it again and it hasn't gotten noticably any flatter.. 

14.8.26

We arrived at Reflections holiday park late in the afternoon and went for a bit of a wander around the grounds.  I only had my 240mm lens on, so not the greatest of photos.

There was a massive flock of gang-gang cockatoos but we only actually saw these two.

We were distracted by the gang-gangs and a car coming along the road we were on, so only managed a snap of this wonga pigeon and didn't get to actually watch it

There were *heaps* of kookaburras on the grounds, we saw maybe a dozen

Some crimson rosellas

We could hear this common bronzewing hooting a long time before Stu spotted it on the ground.  Dunno why they're called "common" .. they should be called rainbow pigeons or something - so pretty!

15.8.26

There's signs at the cabins asking not to feed the birds on the patios. So I went to the car parking space and the birds came down.  All the birds!  But mostly king parrots, sulphur crested cockatoos, three young crimson rosellas and a couple of magpies.  And a mob of kangaroos.

Late morning we headed on a meandering walk north through the grounds, then along the Hume and Hovell track to Carrolls Creek.

White-winged chough

There were lots of brown thornbills.  Every time we stopped to look at movement it'd be, oh, just another brown thornbill

White-browed scrub-wren

Either a juvenile or a female golden whistler

Male satin bowerbird

This Australasian darter was there for a while then took off which was pretty cool

Didn't get any good photos of the eastern spinebills

Pelican!

Little pied cormorant

We stopped for some lunch at Carrolls Creek, then turned around and headed back.

Yellow-faced honeyeater

Another brown thornbill

Scarlet robin

Grey shrike-thrush (we think)

This was a new bird for me - a spotted quail-thrush - and I was lucky to get a pretty decent photo of it

A great cormorant on the opposite bank of the inlet

Varied sitella, apparently

Male golden whistler

White-throated treecreeper

This appeared to be a hybrid black-backed and white-backed magpie

These were around the Carrolls Creek campsite

Female satin bowerbird

Pied currawong

Another hybrid magpie

And then we were back to the main resort campsite

Another new bird for me - a flame robin

White-browed scrubwren

16.8.26

Our second morning again saw flocks of king parrots and sulphur crested cockatoos come down to be fed

And a bronzewing!

There were a bunch of things we heard (or Merlin heard) that we never saw.  And a few things we didn't get photos of.

16.8.26

Wayy out the back of Canberra beyond Uriarra is a spot called Sherwood Forest.  We stopped in on our way home from a Burrinjuck weekend.  With all the rain recently there were spots that were very .. moist!  Didn't see a huge amount of bird life, but Stu was very excited to see a spotted quail-thrush in the ACT.

A pair of wood ducks

There were some white-winged coughs near the pond

Some fairy wrens a bit further up

I snapped this spotted quail-thrush as it darted behind a bush.  We never saw it again.

This white-eared honeyeater was wayyyyy off at the top of a tree in the distance, didn't even know what I'd taken a photo of until we downloaded the photos.

Ever-present brown thornbills

For my birthday the sweetie thought it would be nice to go away for the weekend. Actually he wanted to go birdwatching and take me along ;)  Doing this as one big entry, so be patient ;)

Day 1 - Friday 14.8.26

I was hoping to leave around lunch time but we had too much to do (and I was at work til midday) so didn't get out the door until around 13:15.  Picked up some beer to take with us.  Got random breath tested on the Barton Highway which was pretty funny (just counting to ten).  Then to KFC for a light late lunch (it's tradition!). They were super slow though. Like, I just wanted three pieces of chicken and a drink for the sweetie.  Woulda taken him ten seconds to grab them, but no, I had to wait and wait for who knows what.  Took like five or ten minutes or something.  Ridiculous.  The chicken was very nice, but the flavour was a bit.. bland.. like they'd forgotten half the spice mix.

We stopped in Yass so I could reproduce some photos of Dad's from 1964 or so.  And take a few of my own.

We also dropped into the IGA for some supplies.

Then onto Burrinjuck.  A relatively short but pleasant drive.

Arrived at the Reflections Holiday Park around 15:50.

Checked in, then headed down to our cabin.  It was lovely!  Spacious, well appointed and a stunning view!

We unpacked the car and got ourselves settled. Then we went out for a walk.  I was going to go by myself but the sweetie agreed to come.  I was just planning to walk around the campsite to see what the place had, but it ended up being more of a bird walk.  Which would have been fine, except I didn't have my big lens with me.  Oh well.

We walked past the kiosk (which was closed all weekend being off season and all) and connected to the wifi briefly (there's almost no Optus and very weak Telstra).

Wood bbq - reminded me of home when we used to fire up a bbq like this that my Dad built

We headed back to the cabin via the shore.  With the dam so low (56%) it was an easy walk.  Until it wasn't.  Closer to the cabin it got quite steep so it was a bit of scrambling over loose rocks.  But we made it ok.

Cracked out the bubbles!

And kievs and gems for dinner.  I brought my own baking trays because I doubted they'd have any.  I also brought my own baking paper.  Which ran out after lining one tray.  Whoops.  What would have been handy was an oven mit - it was a bit tricky to get the big tray out with only one hand with a tea towel.

Then put on The Hunt for Red October.  Annoyingly the DVD player didn't have a remote.  So we could start it, and stop it, but not pause.

Grabbed one of the spare towels from the kids room to use as a bathmat because the bathroom didn't have one (or a hand towel).

Day 2 - Saturday 15.8.26

Slept okish.  Stu wanted to leave the aircon on because he was cold, but I kept waking up hot.  We'd put it on when we arrived and it said it had a ten hour timer.  So I was thinking it'd turn off around 2:30.  Except it didn't.  It was more like 6:30.  Oh well.

It was completely white when I first got up!  This was a litte later.

Had my breakfast and did some Lego.  

Went out again to look at the fog clearing and saw king parrot on the balcony of the neighbouring cabin.  So I went and got the seed I'd brought and gave it a shake, and it flew over to the fence.  I held out my hand and it jumped right on!!

For quite a while it was just that one and it was super cool and very civilised.  Our neighbour Georgie took a heap of photos with my phone.

But then word got out.  And it was on.  A whole FLOCK of king parrots and a small flock of cockatoos all came down for breakfast.  It was mental!!  Even the kangaroos would eat the seeds, husks and all.  I gave two cockatoos a chance to be hand-fed but they both bit me, so I ingored them and just played with the king parrots (I left plenty on the ground for everyone).

Left the sweetie get ready and I drove down to the "dam lookout" which is a half-hearted attempt to appease people like me.  The turds at Water NSW have blocked it off in recent years so I couldn't reproduce Dad's photos from 1964.  And they're not bothering to keep the trees down either so you have to get up on a rock to get a crap view.

Came back and we got ready and headed out again around 11:10.

Went for a very long, very slow walk, ~3km up the inlet to Carrolls Creek.  It was actually an easy walk, almost all level along the foreshore of the dam, but it was very slow because we kept stopping to take photos of birds.

We arrived at Carrolls Creek around 13:15 and had some lunch.

Stu had been wanting to go further along the track but it was already nearly 14:00 so we decided just to head back.

The walk back was just as slow, with just as many bird stops.

Got back to the cabin around 16:15.  Our everything hurt!

Had a couple of drinks and watched some Big Bang Theory.  Our neighbours John and Louise (and Georgie) setup a fire and invited us over so we had some mulled wine in front of the fire which was very civilised. 

Then we had some tv dinners for dinner and went to bed.

Day 3 - Sunday 16.8.26

Slept a bit crap, again waking up hot here and there.  Finished the Lego I brought down.

Once the sweetie was ready I went out to find the birds.  Except the kangaroos came first.  A whole MOB of them.  They too were happy to eat out of my hand, but they were also a bit more aggressive in wanting to rip the packet of seed open.  So I went around to the other side of the fence so they couldn't get at me. Eventually the birds came down.

Georgie took this funny selfie of a king parrot on her arm

Then we packed up and went and checked out around 9:45.

Went back to the dam wall again because Stu wanted to see it.

On the way out we stopped at the Carrolls Creek Waterfall.

Then back through Yass.

Victoria Park Gate

Then the sweetie surprised me with a bridge!!!  Taemas Bridge.  This beautiful truss bridge over the Murrumbidgee River just before it becomes Lake Burrinjuck.

There was a stile near the southern end so we climbed it and went down under the bridge.

Awesome!

Then we headed back into the ACT.  It's kinda weird to be driving through farmland in the middle of nowhere and then you crest a hill and see high rise buildings of a big city!

We stopped outside Sherwood Forest to have some lunch, then went in for a bird walk.

There was heaps of this grassland sundew around which was pretty cool

And lots of these Early Nancy flowers

Possibly Walker Hill trig in the foreground and Black Mountain Tower in the background

We kept walking up the hill for a while

Then decided the clouds looked too ominous so decided to head back.

We arrived back at the car at 14:30 - at the same time the rain did!

Then headed for home.

So all in all it was a lovely weekend!!

Sunday.  9th.  Stu cooked up a heap of veggies which we had with some leftover lamb. Watched Kenton's part 1 video in Peru which was fun. OMFG so many *different* birds!!!

Monday.  Somewhat broken sleep. Bit of BS at work but actually got through a lot of the training from last week which was really good to get done. Not much of it left. Leftovers for dinner, MacGyver (into season 6) then remembered I still have two episodes left of Lego Masters season 8 so I watched one of those. Also today my phone took it upon itself to upgrade itself to iOS 26.  OMFG everything is so BIG!!  The timer is particularly hilarious.  It's like it things we're getting old and can't see anymore so it's magnified everything.  What a joke.

Tuesday.  Mostly okish sleep. Awake from like 5:20 though. Finally finished off the Cisco training which was good. Then played with some of my Splunk searches and updated bookmarks.

For lunch I made some garlic bread - just a bit of unsalted butter, a large clove of garlic, a bit of salt and some herbs, spread onto bread and into the toaster oven for five minutes - delicous!

Leftover sausages from work and cabbage for dinner. MacGyver, then Lego Masters - the finale of season 8, which was the Jurassic World episode, which was a bit of fun since we'd only just seen the first movie the other night. Brickman played Malcolm and I was thinking, but what about a gratuitous chest shot, and someone else was thinking the same thing and actually asked him haha.

Wednesday.  Mostly okish sleep. Awake from 5 for a bit but got a bit more sleep. Mostly a monitoring day and playing with searches and dashboards which was fun.

Also on Wednesday I finished reading Matilda by Roald Dahl which I last read in 2009.  The first movie was very similar to it which was cool.

Thursday.  Awake from 1:30 to 4:00ish. No good reason. Just awake.  Hurray.  Planning, documenting and doing a VPN firewall upgrade. In prod. In the middle of the afternoon. Fun times! Drinks not as busy as we hoped. Mills & Grills for dinner, Kenton's Amazon video, and an early night.

Mills&Grills "smokin special" (ham, pineapple, salami, prawns and mozzarella, $15.90) and "nachos" (Bolognese base, Corn chips, Salsa, Bacon, Jalapenos & Mozzarella topped with Avocado & Sour cream, $21.90) - the nachos one definitely had nachos vibes!

Friday.  Slept mostly ok, surprisingly (after drinks and way too much pizza, felt bloated for ages). My first birthday wish was from my bathroom scales haha. More dashboarding in the morning, then we headed off at lunch time (a bit after) to Burrinjuck!  I'll post that at some point soon, once I sort out the photos.  All 900-odd of them...!  I will leave you with this though - probably the highlight of the weekend was feeding the king parrots both mornings.  So fricken cool!