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1100 hours today, walking past the Menzies Library at ANU with my binos, I
was approached by a large man wearing heavy, horn-rimmed glasses and a great
coat. Somehow, he reminded me of a Powerful Owl. Anyhow, he toted a pair
of Leitz binos and asked if I was a birder. He introduced himself as Harry
from Toronto, Canada and said he'd seen a Tree Sparrow about 15 minutes
previously near the little cafe, up the stairs and (roughly) north of the
library.
Harry seemed to know his stuff because he rattled off the field marks of a
Tree Sparrow and carried Birds of the ACT by Taylor & Day, so
he knew Tree Sparrows were rare in Canberra. We went up and searched for a while
but no Passer montanus. Walked with him to the carpark where Big Harry
opened the door of a teeny-weeny Toyota Corolla hatchback with NT number plates.
I wondered if he needed a shoehorn to get into the silly little thing. He'd
driven it all the way from Darwin and was heading to Perth, then onto South
Africa and England before going home to Toronto.
I directed him to the ANBG and told him where he might check-off the
Powerful Owl. The enthusiastic Harry said he'd go look for it. I reckon there's
a good chance he found it. See, birds of a feather tend to flock together.
Nonetheless, he was a nice bloke and showed me his Australian bird list. So far,
he'd checked-off 205 species during his wanderings in Australia over the past
four weeks.
Will be at ANU on Sunday morning, so will search again for Harry's
sparrow.
John K. Layton
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