 In his private life FitzGerald developed his skills as an ornithologist.Coupled with his skills as a taxidermist he initially (during 1855-56) contributed a number of articles on the birds of his hometown Kerry to that town's magazine.More specifically FitzGerald had an enormous interest in botany and in 1864 he travelled to Wallis Lake, north of Newcastle in New South Wales to collect ferns and orchids which he intended to cultivate around his Hunter's Hill home.