After a cool start to the day, it turned out to be a glorious afternoon and we had afternoon tea out on the back lawn.

Leanne out-did herself with creating decorations for the back yard (with a lot of help from her sister, Bron). But the best part was the cakes Leanne made – one was a plain cake iced in the shape of the map of Colombia, and the other was a pair of chocolate cake logs placed together and iced to look like the Colombian flag.

Andres's birthday cake - map of Colombia (in Colombian flag colours) with a candle marking approximately where Cali is

Andres's other birthday cake - chocolate log cakes iced in the colours of the Colombian flag

Andres looks a little bewildered by all these people singing to him

One of the worst dust storms in Sydney’s history – soil blown in from the inland deserts and western farming regions on strong westerly winds. The early morning light on the dust gave it an eerie red glow, with visibility down to less than 100m at times.

I grabbed the camera and jumped in the car to go and take some photos before it cleared.

Sydney @ 7am - dust storm!

Warringah freeway @ Willoughby Rd overpass - 7am

North Sydney @ 7:25am

Sydney Harbour Bridge from Blues Point

ABC TV crew prepare to go live at Blues Point to talk about the dust storm

I got some good photos – although I still need to practice my technique more for taking photos of birds in flight … difficult subject!

Zebra - Taronga Zoo

Wedgie - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Juvenile Andean Condor with a "Miner" problem - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Juvenile Andean Condor comes in to land - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Red-tailed Black Cockatoo - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Leanne and Andres at Taronga Zoo

Leanne and Andres with the elephants at Taronga Zoo

Luk Chai and Thong Dee at Taronga Zoo

Rainbow Lorikeet (wild) at Taronga Zoo

I’ll eventually upload some more photos to the Taronga Zoo gallery on ZooChat.

He picked me up and I directed him up to Kuringai Chase National Park where we drove around looking for the ideal spot to take some sunset photos.

We had to be a little careful, since they close the gates around an hour after sunset and it can be very costly to get someone to come out and unlock them.

After taking some photos at West Head, we drove back and walked down to America Bay and stopped to take photos of the sunset over the water.

Jimmy let me try his 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens which I had never used before, while he tried my 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS lens. I was quite impressed with the quality of the shots taken with the 70-200 … but then I would want to be – this is considered one of the best zoom lenses that Canon make and is more expensive than my 100-400!

Jimmy taking photos at West Head

Small yacht powers up the Hawkesbury

Barrenjoey Head as taken from West Head

Moon - taken handheld with Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens (image cropped)

Seaplane lands on Pittwater

Sunset over America Bay - Kuringai Chase National Park

Sunset over America Bay - Kuringai Chase National Park

Sunset over America Bay - Kuringai Chase National Park

Sunset over America Bay - Kuringai Chase National Park

This is quite a spectacular area of Sydney, with the mouth of the Hawkesbury River and many inlets and coves forming an intricate maze of waterways to explore. The scenery is amazing just about any way you look.

At West Head, the north-easterly most part of the national park you get views out over the Hawkesbury towards Woy Woy, and across Pittwater to Barrenjoey Head and Palm Beach.

Looking across Pittwater from West Head - Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Looking across the Hawkesbury to Lion Island from West Head - Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Barrenjoey Head seen from West Head - Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Then late morning, the Channel 7 helicopter hovered out over Chatswood for quite a few minutes – I have no idea what it was doing there, but it was a bit annoying when I was trying to get some work done.

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As I was heading back along Flat Rock Creek, I came across a White Faced Heron wading through the water, obviously looking for fish. I took some photos and watched him for about 10 minutes as he wandered back and forth, checking out places where fish were likely to be lurking. Eventually he found something and darted around trying to corner the fish before he stood, perfectly still for close to 5 minutes (according to the timestamp on the photos I took!), before finally lunging and coming up with this big juicy looking fish.

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White Faced Heron with fish

After watching it wriggling around for a bit, the Heron deftly flipped it into its beak and swallowed it whole. Was fascinating to watch the whole thing unfold.

White Faced Heron swallowing fish

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Pacific Black Duck doing a little dance

The dancing from a variety of different South American countries was fascinating, and the food was fantastic (have I mentioned how much I love empanadas?). We tried some interesting dishes and basically spent the afternoon wandering around between the exhibitions and grazing on the food from different stalls – I think we sampled something from almost every one of them.

There was also a Capoeira exhibition, which is a kind of part martial art / part dance / part game, with lots of acrobatics and lots of noise. Fascinating to watch.

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That was until I was heading back to the car, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye – I looked up to see a large Tawny Frogmouth nestled on a tree branch, looking all fluffy and comfortable. I’ve always liked these birds – ever since we used to go “hunting” them (with a torch) at night when camping – going only by the sound of their call and then trying to work out whether it was a bird we were looking at or just a tree branch.

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Tawny Frogmouth

As I got closer to try and get a better shot – he decided he would try and “hide” by turning into a branch – something they generally are very very good at.

Two problems for this guy – I already knew where he was (he didn’t actually move), and he chose a dark coloured tree which he stood out against pretty well. If it were a gum tree he probably would have just about disappeared – I’ve seen them being very tree-like before.

Tawny Frogmouth trying to be tree-like

I could see him watching me out of a narrowly slitted eye, and after about five minutes of me wondering around taking photos, he largely gave up trying to be inconspicuous, but didn’t actually move. I left him to go back to sleep and headed home.

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