Congratulations to Pat O'Malley for what I judge to be the post of the
year. I agree heartily with everything he (she?) said except for the bit
about Lewin's Rail. I can vouch for the existence of at least one of
these. The problem with Lewin's Rail is that it only appears on February
18th each year and is thus not visible to people of Irish descent who
would be suffering from the multiple hangover syndrome known as
'gangrene' on this day.
My most memorable birdwatching experience was the time my wife and I
were sitting on a rock in the river (upper reaches of the Manning) at
Woko National Park, north of Gloucester NSW. We had been watching one of
our favourite birds, an Azure Kingfisher, when some Bell Miners came to
a tree on the river bank and started diving into the water to bathe.
Some of the Miners actually stayed in the shallows for several seconds
and whilst watching these my wife noticed that one of them looked a
little strange. She drew my attention to the bird which, as every one of
you will have guessed, was a Lewin's Rail. Oblivious of our presence,
this bird finished bathing and then stood on the edge of the water under
an overhanging erosion-caused bank and preened itself for a good ten
minutes. We were about 4-5 metres away, a magic moment.
There, I've managed to combine all the recent threads of favourite
birds, rare/non-existent birds, most memorable birdwatching experience
and racism in the one post. It will be interesting to see under which
category this falls in the archive.
Regards to all
Paul Osborn
PS Still at least one Yellow Wagtail on Ash Island on 12th March, third
time lucky for me, having dipped out twice in recent weeks.
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