We know our clients well. Many of you have lived in The Hills for decades or are arriving here because you want more space, a greener environment and more of the kind of life that has a bit of birdsong in it. So we thought it worth pulling together a proper guide that’s not just a list of parks, but a genuine exploration of our local birdwatching culture.
Why The Hills is a birders’ paradise
The Hills Shire is a mosaic of habitats including sandstone ridgetop woodland, shale-based transition forest, creek gullies thick with ferns and coachwood trees, and open grassland reserves that together support an impressive diversity of birdlife. The Cumberland Plain, which stretches across much of western Sydney, meets the richer soils of the Hawkesbury here, and that boundary creates exactly the kind of edge habitat that birds love.
It also helps that The Hills has retained far more green space than many comparable suburban areas, which means that birds can move through the landscape rather than being stranded in isolated pockets. That connectivity matters enormously for resident species, and it’s a genuine selling point for the area – ecologically, aesthetically, and in terms of quality of life.
Our local bird species
Even if you’ve no intention of keeping a list, you’ll have noticed many of these already.
The Sulphur-crested Cockatoo is the Hills’ unofficial mascot. These birds travel in noisy flocks, particularly around older gum trees, and have a talent for extracting the lids from bins and wreaking cheerful havoc in gardens. (According to a bird lover we spoke to, these ‘gangs’ tend to be juvenile males so their behaviour shouldn’t be unexpected.) Their slightly smaller cousins, the Galah, are equally common.
The Laughing Kookaburra you’ll know by sound long before you see it. Kookaburras are territorial, fiercely loyal to their family groups and will sit on a fence post and regard you with magnificent disdain.
In the bush reserves and along the creek corridors, keep an eye out for the Eastern Rosella, a breathtaking bird, its crimson head, yellow breast and green back almost too vivid to be real. The Crimson Rosella is rarer but equally gorgeous, and both species favour the more wooded, sheltered gullies. Of course, you’re likely to see Rainbow Lorikeets in abundance.
The Australian Magpie needs no introduction, and September brings that familiar wariness among walkers and cyclists. But for most of the year, the magpie’s carolling is one of the genuinely lovely sounds of Australian mornings. They mate for life, remember individual human faces, and are rather more sophisticated than their swooping season suggests.
Among the smaller birds, the Superb Fairy-wren is an absolute treasure. The breeding male’s brilliant blue and black plumage is astonishing and they move through dense understorey vegetation in little family parties, chattering constantly. The Striated Thornbill and Brown Thornbill are harder to spot but equally present, flitting through the canopy in the bushland reserves.
The Grey Fantail is another delight, an acrobatic, confiding little bird that will follow bushwalkers through the scrub, catching insects disturbed by your footsteps. It fans its tail extravagantly and twists through the air with extraordinary agility.
For the dedicated birder, the real prizes in The Hills include the Glossy Black-Cockatoo; the Powerful Owl, which roosts by day in the denser forest pockets; and the Tawny Frogmouth, which is not actually an owl at all but impersonates a broken branch with uncanny success. The Tawny Frogmouth was BirdLife Australia’s 2025 Bird of the Year, no less. Noted as endangered in NSW, the Bush Stone-curlew can be seen rarely in the district.
Along the waterways, watch out for kingfishers darting from overhanging branches. The White-faced Heron stalks the shallows, and you may be lucky enough to glimpse a Royal Spoonbill along the broader creek sections.
Best birding spots in The Hills
Fred Caterson Reserve in Castle Hill is the starting point for any Hills birder. A variety of habitats in a relatively compact area means the bird list is impressively long. Fairy-wrens, thornbills, rosellas, cockatoos and raptors have all been recorded here. It’s also home to species at risk of extinction (the Glossy Black-Cockatoo and Powerful Owl both use the reserve), which gives local conservation efforts a particular urgency. There has been considerable community effort in recent years to protect the reserve’s bushland from overdevelopment, and groups like the Fred Cat Weed Warriors Bushcare team do vital work maintaining the habitat. The reserve has hosted guided birdwatching walks with local experts from the Cumberland Bird Observers Club as part of National Bird Week, and these are very much worth attending.
Cattai National Park, further north in the shire, is another great location. The park follows the Hawkesbury River and contains a wonderful variety of bird habitats, from river flats to woodland ridge. Waterbirds, raptors and woodland species all feature here, and the sense of remoteness is remarkable. The historic Cattai Farm within the park adds a pleasing sense of history to a morning’s birding.
Bidjigal Reserve in Baulkham Hills and Excelsior Creek offer fine walks through sandstone gully forest. The walk into the shady valley of Excelsior Creek, with its ferns and coachwood trees, is particularly good for species that prefer dense, sheltered vegetation. On warm days, the Eastern Water Dragon adds to the wildlife count. Hot tip: Take an early morning stroll through Bidjigal Reserve to see a greater number and variety of bird species.
Rouse Hill Regional Park and the Hawkesbury River corridor offer wetland and open grassland habitat that attracts different species again, a welcome respite from the more typical bushland birds, and excellent for waterbirds.
For those happy to head slightly beyond the shire boundary, Cattai State Forest and the broader Cattai Hills Environment Network bushland corridors offer some of the finest birding in the broader region.
The Cumberland Bird Observers Club
The Cumberland Bird Observers Club (CBOC) was founded in 1979 because travelling into the city to attend the NSW Field Ornithologists Club was simply too inconvenient for residents of western Sydney. The club now has several hundred members and runs more than 40 birdwatching outings each year, plus weekends away and dedicated sessions for younger birders. The club holds its monthly meetings in Castle Hill on the third Tuesday of each month at 7:30pm. The evenings include a guest speaker, a “Bird of the Night” identification segment, plus supper and a chance to meet fellow enthusiasts. Visitors are welcome to attend two meetings before joining. Whether you’re a complete beginner or someone who’s been ticking off species for decades, you will be warmly welcomed.
CBOC also partners with the Sydney Olympic Park Authority each spring for a comprehensive bird census across more than 45 sites, and works with BirdLife Australia and other groups on broader conservation initiatives across the Cumberland Plain.
The NSW Field Ornithologists Club and Birding NSW offer additional club options for those who want a wider range of activities, and BirdLife Southern NSW runs free guided walks at Sydney Olympic Park on the last Sunday of each month, a pleasant expedition for a Hills resident looking to add some wetland species to their life list.
The Aussie Bird Count: 20 minutes to help
Every October, during National Bird Week, BirdLife Australia runs the Aussie Bird Count, Australia’s biggest annual citizen science event. All you need to do is spend twenty minutes in a spot of your choosing, count every bird you see or hear, and submit your results via the free app. In 2024, more than 57,000 participants across the country counted over 4.1 million birds between them.
You don’t need binoculars, specialist knowledge or even to leave your back garden. The Birdata app includes a bird finder to help with identification. It’s a cool way to pay attention to what’s living alongside you and the cumulative data genuinely helps BirdLife Australia track how urban bird populations are faring over time. The 2026 count runs from 19 to 25 October. Put it in the diary now.
Worth a visit: The bellbirds at Casula
The old Casula Powerhouse (now known as the Liverpool Powerhouse, a striking arts centre on the banks of the Georges River) takes its restaurant name, Bellbird, directly from the Bell Miners that call from the trees by the creek. Take a stroll by the creek, you’ll hear them: that pure, ringing, bell-like tone that carries through the bushland with crystalline clarity. You’ll recognise the call even if you’ve never heard a bellbird before, and it’s quite magical.
What do birds have to do with property?
Well, for a start, there is compelling evidence that proximity to green space and to nature has a measurable effect on people’s wellbeing and on their satisfaction with where they live. The garden that gets the fairy-wrens (or the brush turkeys!) The street where the kookaburras call at six in the morning. The house whose back fence looks onto the bush reserve where the cockatoos roost at dusk. For our clients, particularly those arriving from denser, more urban environments, it is often the birds they notice first.
If you’d like to know more about the nature-rich pockets of the Hills, like which streets back onto reserves, which areas have the finest established gardens or where the green corridors run, we’re always happy to talk. We know this shire rather well.
Thinking of selling or need selling advice in The Hills?
We have buyers looking for homes in Rouse Hill, Beaumont Hills, Box Hill, Kellyville, North Kellyville and Tallawong. As established real estate agents, we’re here to help. Get in touch today by calling us on 02 8883 0777.
