When life hands you lemons, it’s best to make lemonade and when life hands you a corona virus it’s time to add a pinch of lime and some salt. Although we spend a lot of our free time going to new places in Sydney and Australia to birdwatch, our favorite outings are when we know a place well enough to call it a local. Just like the pub down our block, we know our neighborhood parks and other birding spots well enough to know what to expect during the seasons. We’re excited during this time to get to know our backyard, our block, and our neighborhood. As long as you keep looking up, there’s qui ..read more

Even though the turn of seasons in Australia is subtle by global measure, each new seasonal chapter still brings change for our corner of the earth. Here in Sydney, as we start grabbing a light jacket on the way out the door in the mornings, a phenomenon is taking place right above us. Autumn begins the great annual honeyeater migration north, beginning late March into April and May lasting between six and eight weeks. Timing, route and numbers migrating depends on a variety of factors, all linked to the general state of things in the south, including flowering, rain, fires and drought. In 20 ..read more

View from the Botanic Gardens mid December Living in Sydney, or any city can be like a bubble, but as I write this, smoke haze is wafting through the back door where we live. It smells like a bonfire and the air is heavy and still, visually dense from clouds that hang over Sydney, but never release, never rain. Climate change has caused an unprecedented disaster for our beautiful NSW, so much of which has been badly burned, with lives and homes lost forever and volunteer firefighters giving more of themselves than should ever be asked. It’s a privilege to live in Sydney and only smell or see ..read more

Ahhh …. the sounds of Sydney in the summer: cicadas, party boats in the harbour and loud ‘koo-eee’ calls from overhead. Just like the tourists who flock to our turquoise shores during summer, several birds also make the journey each year from far-flung places to get a glimpse of Sydney Harbour at her finest. The image above and below are of Channel-billed Cuckoos, annual summer visitors from New Guinea/Indonesia and all around (forgive my french), crazy motherf*@%rs. These birds are the largest cuckoos in the world and the largest parasite brood cuckoos. This means that they lay their eggs in ..read more

Sydney Bird Club is an inclusive urban bird club geared toward beginners. We love our city of Sydney and the website is chock-a-block with self-guided bird walks anyone can do over the course of an afternoon, a day trip or a weekend. We tell it like we see it and write only from firsthand experience listing the birds that we’ve seen ourselves. We offer holistic self-guided walks that include important details like loo locations or a great up of coffee near the walk. Sydney Bird Club is an inclusive club, which means everyone is welcome - all genders, ages and skill levels. Our mission is to m ..read more

Located a five minute drive from Sydney Park, The Grifter Brewing Company is one of our favourite places to sit and sip. With beer sizes no larger than a midi, you can sample a range of this breweries ecclectic and exciting beers. With flavours that sound like they’d be downright terrible like cucumber and watermelon and coconut, the team at Grifter have somehow transformed the flavours into a perfect marriage as beer. Located a five minutes drive from Sydney Park in Alexandria, we recommend visiting Grifters after an afternoon in the park’s wetlands. Sydney Park is an open space of 40 hectar ..read more

Sydney Park is a true urban oasis for both people and birds. Formerly a brickmaking site and then landfill, the City of Sydney transformed mountains of garbage into wetlands for birds. Located in Alexandria, Sydney Park provides 40 hectares in a part of the city that would otherwise largely be a concrete jungle. The park itself alternates between rolling hills and open fields with the wetlands that criss-cross the park, creeks feeding into each other. We had driven by the park countless times before we stepped foot inside (mostly on the way to IKEA). The parks iconic brick chimneys can be see ..read more

Ahhh….The Unicorn Hotel. Long before it was voted Sydney’s best pub in Time Out, it was our favourite local. No pokies, no gross carpets and no TV’s. It is an oasis in Sydney where you often have to contend with all three of those things just to grab a pint. With a big painted map of Australia on the wall upstairs, The Unicorn is a great place to go for a pint after a day of birding. The closest birding spot is Centennial Park, a 189 hectare park within the city. We have a separate post about birdwatching in Centennial Park (see the Sydney birding section), but 130 species of birds have been ..read more

Our pair of Celestron 7x50 binoculars started it all. Given to me as a gift by my brother years ago, I first used them on a trip to Finland to study birds in 2013. These binoculars have been a part of my birding life ever since then and we take them out whenever we go birding. They are easy to use with great image integrity and have been extremely durable in all kinds of weather, hot and cold, wet and dry (although they are water resistant, not waterproof). At two pounds they are also easy to carry around all day and come with a comfortable, padded strap and carrying case. They have a magnifi ..read more

Of all the post birding pubs and bars we’ve tried in Sydney, Busby’s Bar, located within The Royal Botanic Gardens wins the award for best view hands down. Busyb’s Bar is a pop-up bar, open in the summer by Victoria Lodge. It serves local brews and food, including an excellent hotdog (according to this American). Seating is outside, in the Gardens on the deck chairs strewn about the lawn. With plenty of shade on a hot day, Busy’s Bar is on a point across from the Sydney Opera House. It is harbourside gazing in its finest. It doesn’t matter if your from out of town or if you’ve lived in Sydney ..read more