Dear Birders,
It is with great pleasure that I joined Bill Moorhead his 13 year old son,
Jack, and friend Karen Blake on an attempt to find Scarlet-chested Parrot in
mallee country north of Ceduna S. A.. The search was unsuccessful but during
the trip young Jack caught up with his 700th Australian bird. It was a great
achievement for Jack and achieved only after a pretty hard week of birding when
the daytime maximum each day was in the mid 40's with a high on at least 2 days
of 47 degrees.
When I joined the others in Port Augusta Jack was on 699 - they had been
birding for 10 days during which time Jack had seen 10 new birds.We all hoped
that the Scarlet-chested Parrot would be Jack's 700th but it was not to be. We
saw a good suite of birds in Yumbarra Conservation Park including a number of
Western Yellow Robin and Pied Honeyeater. Unfortunately after 3 days of
intensive birding we saw no signs of SCP. On our return we spent a few very hot
hours in Lake Gilies Conservation Park looking for Slender-billed Thornbill
that would have been a new bird for Jack. Again it was not to be. It appeared
that the birding gods were determined that Jack would have to suffer the
indignity of recording Barbary Dove as his 700th, in penance for his
precociousness! In an attempt to avoid this indignity we drove to Stokes Hill
Lookout in the Flinders Ranges to look for Short-tailed Grasswren. A few hours
of early morning birding produced nothing.
With few other options we drove to Salisbury Downs just north of Adelaide where
after a few minutes of wandering around a Barbary Dove was found sitting on a
power pole. The birding gods had delivered their "sucker punch" and Jack was
700!
The mere quantum of birds is to my perspective less significant than the very
impressive birding skills that Jack has acquired along the way. He has been
lucky to have had dad, Bill (an keen and talented twitcher), helping but in the
last few years Jack has developed an incredibly keen eye and an enviable
knowledge of bird calls. I was privileged to see this young man exhibit all of
these skills and more as he very maturely waited for the 700th to come along.
He accepted the judgement of the birding gods with equanimity - no doubt
appreciative of the fact that he has many years ahead of him in which to find
the SCP et al.
Congratulations Jack.
Regards
Peter Marsh
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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