Dear Members,

There has been a small change to the meeting place for the Warriewood Wetlands outing on the 10th March. Revised details are below: 

REVISED DETAILS FOR BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY OUTING, MARCH 10th, WARRIEWOOD WETLANDS

LEADER: MARION ANSTIS

PLEASE LET MARION KNOW BY TEXT OR EMAIL by Saturday 9th March if you are coming.

MEETING TIME AND PLACE: Venue for the morning has now been changed to just the Warriewood Wetlands area, as Long Reef is a bit harder to get close enough to birds, and parking is $10 an hour!!

So, we will meet at Flower Power nursery (parking available in grounds) at 7 am on March 10. Google maps will show you this, but the address is 22 Macpherson St, Warriewood. I will point out a few tips about settings that may help you get started if you haven’t had much practice photographing birds.

From there we have a morning stroll to visit three small lakes where we hope to see various water birds, possibly Royal Spoonbill, White-face heron, White-necked heron, ducks, coots, moorhens etc. There may be an occasional bird of prey overhead.

After we have explored the three lakes in this area, we will drive to another entrance to the wetlands at Katoa Close off Garden St (parking hopefully available, and free). If the car parking area is full, there is a shopping centre with free parking not too far away, or perhaps street parking nearby.

When we are all together again, we will enter the wetlands and stroll along the boardwalk and forest track where we should see various water birds again, including perhaps Australasian Darters, and even perhaps a Grey Goshawk that has been seen in the area. There are a number of smaller forest birds including thornbills, scrub wrens, superb wrens, pardalotes etc., bell miners are common, and there are whipbirds there. There is also a chance we may come across an Azure Kingfisher. There are a number of butterflies, dragonflies etc. you can practise on too!

When we return, there are picnic tables there, so you may bring some morning tea.

After a break, we will head to another part of the walking trails starting alongside the shopping centre area and walking in a big loop around the wetlands until we return to our cars in Garden St or nearby. Armed with a packed lunch you can have it there or head to the shopping centre nearby after we finish where there is a food court.

WHAT TO BRING/WEAR

    • SLR camera body and tele lens – minimum 200mm, but 300mm or longer is better.  Zoom lenses e.g. 70-300mm are fine as well. You can also use a compact zoom camera with inbuilt long zoom if you prefer, but for birds in flight an SLR shutter is better.
    • Hat, sunscreen, good walking boots, sunglasses, water bottle, a light long-sleeved shirt if weather is still warm, binoculars if desired.
    • Spare battery and card for camera
  • Food and drink.