SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — This morning, everyone else boarded a plane for Los Angeles and left me alone at the airport. I had a little bit of trouble getting a ride back to my hotel, but I made it downtown eventually.

Immediately after getting settled in my new room, I headed for the Borders bookstore I saw last night with Mark, Emily, and Anna. I found a compact field guide with beautiful illustrations: Simpson and Day’s “Field Guide to the Birds of Australia.”

Much as I wanted to get right out and bird, I decided to grab some lunch and spend time looking through the guide, familiarizing myself with Australian avifauna. Surely that could be accomplished in 15 minutes or so. I found a bench in Hyde Park. Rock Pigeons swirled around occasionally, and a rainbow wreathed the feet of the magnificent bronze atop a fountain.

Then a white ibis sidled toward me. Its head was naked and black, and its neck sported stringy white plumes. It came quite close, and we eyed one another, each unsure of the other’s intentions. It strutted away, and I noticed some red iridescence on the back of its head.

My whirlwind tour through the guide left me dazed and confused, but I stuffed it into my backpack and headed north, in the general direction of the botanic gardens. Evidently the grayish, ground-feeding birds I saw yesterday were not a type of myna but a miner — a honeyeater. I’d have to find some again and look closer.

As I walked, I encountered a chunky, slow-moving bird on the ground, patterned intricately with black and white. Because it was near the women’s restroom, I decided not to stop and stare with my binoculars. I kept moving and found a place to sit down. I pulled out my guide — aha, a Magpie-lark. Then I looked up and saw another a short distance away. The species is dimorphic, with slightly different head patterns between males and females. I determined that this second bird was a male.

Then I found a currawong perched low in a small tree — it was huge. From my study, I knew what to look for. Hooked bill — check. White rump — check. A Pied Currawong, and what a fun name.

People were everywhere, and I tried to keep a low profile, looking neither like a terrorist, nor a voyeur, nor a nut.

The miners proved abundant and easy to observe. They had smudgy black heads and yellow skin around their eyes. They were noisy and rarely alone, seeming equally at home on the ground or in the trees. Their gray rumps and light tail tips convinced me of their identification if range and habitat were not enough.

I saw a pied, crow-sized bird on the ground. Even its bill was black and white. Unfortunately, it was wandering around near a couple working hard on their biology lessons. I had to keep walking. A consultation with Simpson and Day told me I’d just seen and Australian Magpie, which is a butcherbird, not a corvid.

If Wuvulu’s birds all dressed in black, Sydney’s birds like black AND white. In addition to the Magpie-larks, currawongs, and magpies, I saw a Little Pied Cormorant diving for fish. And there were the Australian Ravens with their white irises and wailing cries and the striking white cockatoos with black bills and eyes. The cockatoos’ screeching was horrific.

As I approached the opera house, I came across a pond teeming with birds. There at last I felt free to use my binoculars. Everyone else was looking at birds too. Blackish moorhens with bright white rear ends chased each other, uttering shrill, high-pitched calls. Little Black Cormorants rested in the palms, sporting silvery spots on their backs. Ibises nested in the trees, and their chicks peeped incessantly while the adults grunted and groaned.

Two Eurasian Coots swam by, all black with bright white bills and forehead shields. Rainbow Lorikeets flew overhead occasionally, screeching and flashing red.

Eventually I wandered on, finally coming across a bird I’d gotten a glimpse of yesterday and hoped to see again. It was a Masked Lapwing — a very large shorebird with strange flaps of yellow skin growing on its face. Spectacular. And then, very near the opera house by now, I happened across another bird feeding on the grass. It looked like a small goose with a brown head and dark spots diffused across its light breast. His mate, much paler and plainer, came from behind me to join him. Australian Wood Ducks.

Time for supper.

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