All,
It certainly was a very interesting and well-written article and the fact
that it stretched beyond the bird itself and onto the past adventures /
misadventures of the more 'committed' twitchers was excellent. I have always
wondered what was the last regular terrestrial bird that Mike Carter had seen
was, and now I know it was a Button-quail (can I assume it was the
Buff-breasted, not the Chestnut-backed if it was seen west of Cairns??). I was
also unaware of the vehicle break-down 700km west of the Alice and the story
attached to that. I reckon these types of things make for just as good reading
as the GHL story itself....
...and it also gives me hope that my girlfriend will be just as patient as
other twitchers' partners seem to be....though she has seen the GHL and that's
her in Mark's article photo to prove it!
As Russ has pointed out below, seeing the GHL has pretty much just taken time
and money to get there...I wonder also if Rohan should take into account the
amount of fossil-fuels burnt for us all to see it too? Hats off to the first
person to ride a bike there!
Mick Roderick
Dam Lamb <> wrote:
David,
I think one of the contributing factors as to why the GHL has
attracted more attention than other rarities is the degree of
site-faithfullness it has shown, thus improving the odds of twitchers being
successful.The bird has been known (by birders) to have been in Burren
Junction now for nearly 6 weeks, in a relatively contained area.Everyone who
has gone to see it has got it , as far as we know, so it isn't hard to see
the bird.It isn't even hard to get to Burren Junction, though it of course
takes time and money.So it's become a dead-set cert, or as poker players
would say, the pot-odds are heavily in your favour.Just think of the
attention it would have generated if it had landed in Centennial Park in
Sydney.
( And I'm very happy to be one of those who has seen it)
Russ Lamb, Maleny,SEQ
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