Cooks River At Botany Bay

So you ride all the way down the Cooks River cycle path. Past Cup and Saucer Creek Wetlands. Past Boat Harbour. Past Gough Whitlam Park and Wetlands. Past Landing Lights Wetlands. And here you are. The Mouth of The Cooks River at Botany Bay. To the north there's Sydney Airport and Port Botany with its bulk petroleum and container terminals. To the south there's the long six kilometre stretch of Lady Robinsons Beach and residential suburbs all the way to The Georges River. You can ride along a cycle path all that way, and stop to swim at any of the seven tidal baths with their shark nets, if you want to. Just around the corner from the mouth is Kyeemagh Baths where I sometimes stop for a dip. You can usually spot a few Bar-Tailed Godwits on the beach here in the season. Otherwise it's gulls and terns, gulls and terns.

Port Botany terminals and Sydney Airport in the distance

No Bar-tailed Godwits today

Gough Whitlam Park Saltmarsh

Not far away from the billabong is another example of restored saltmarsh. It was constructed about 10 years ago. The saltmarsh is designed to be inundated at high tide, although it has since been realised that some areas were not excavated to a sufficent depth. This sensitive environment is important as habitat to crabs and molluscs and some fish.

I sometimes do a bit of weeding or mulching or planting here as part of a volunteer project run by Canterbury Council. Quite a few of The Mudcrabs come to work on this project. Areas such as this and the other restoration projects are vitally important to the rivers's returning health.

The restored saltmarsh

A rationale for replacing seawalls with natural riverine banks

Gough Whitlam Park

So there's this little patch of restored native riverine forest by a "billabong" along the Cooks River. It's just off the bike path, and close to the kids' playground at Gough Whitlam Park. There's a cafe across a wooden bridge where you can take your KeepCup and get a discount on your coffee. And there's a wooden picnic table and bench where I sit to sip my long black, and where I like to keep my eyes open for birds.

A female Leaden Flycatcher looks nothing like a male. The female has a reddish throat and breast above a white belly and beneath a blue-grey cap. The male however has a completely blue-grey upper body, and a noticeable crest. I saw my first female in this tiny bit of scrub, and had to look it up in the books. An immature male Golden Whistler looks nothing like a mature male. I first saw one here, and had to look that up as well. An immature Spangled Drongo lacks the red eyes and the iridescent spots of the mature bird. Yep, you guessed it.

It's hard to describe just how small the patch I'm talking about really is. Not much bigger than your backyard probably. Though it's close to a long stretch of restored river bank vegetation and to mangroves, I'm still amazed at all the birds I've seen here while I'm sitting relaxing with coffee. It gives me just that little boost of confidence that, if we restore more of the Cooks River environment, biodiversity will increase. And, of course, if that happens, there'll be different birds for me to look up in my old bird books.

Cooks River bike path with the bridge over the tidal inlet to the billabong.

I have seen such a variety of birds in this small patch of restored scrub.

View from my picnic table.

The billabong at low tide. Lots of crabs in the mangroves. Striated Mangrove Herons have nested here.