Decided to sneak in a bit of a bird nerd yesterday in between work stuff. So did a meeting in the morning then headed out north. There’d been a reported sighting of a White Bellied Sea Eagle so went chasing wild gooses.

Went to a part of the International Bird Sanctuary, and if ever you did see a sad fucking excuse of a place for a bird sanctuary, this is it. It’s like all the good places were taken for other stuff, so the left overs got designated ‘bird sanctuary’. Plus, it’s mostly for ‘shore birds’ which is pretty much code for ‘shit birds’ because even though I’ll get in trouble for saying this, most of them are pretty fucking boring looking even though, to be fair, some of them fly literally tens of thousands of miles from places like Siberia to come visit our bird sanctuary every year and I can only imagine they must feel pretty fucking ripped off when they get here because I bet it doesn’t look like that in the brochure.

So I find a little park that’s right next to the go kart/motorbike racing track, because this seems like it would be a nice, quiet place to find birds. I start walking down a trail while enjoying the serenity, engine sounds and smell of motor oil, when a park ranger’s vehicle drives past me and parks up ahead. I’m literally the only fuckhead around, but I’m pretty sure I don’t look suss because I’m carrying my camera and have camo pants and a Tshirt on, but haven’t put my creepy killer camo mask on or anything. Mostly because there’s literally not a fucking bird in sight other than the spoggy near where I parked. I do, however, see an abandoned armchair so that’s something I guess and will definitely come in handy if I need a rest on the way back.

The ranger parks up ahead for a while then turns around and drives back towards me and stops and asks what I’m doing. I consider telling him I’m doing my Christmas shopping, but decide instead to admit I’m looking for birds in case it’s not obvious, and I think the only reason he doesn’t laugh out loud is because he’s scoffing a ham and cheese roll and doesn’t want to spit any of it out.

I tell him I’d heard someone had spotted a white bellied sea eagle out this way and actually, this time, he’s on board and says he’s heard the same thing. Which gives me false hope that I may see one when actually, at this point, I’d be happy to see just about any kind of bird, even another spoggy.

He tells me the most likely place I’ll spot it is just up ahead and when I ask if I should go back to my car and drive there or keep walking he tells me it’s only about another 3kms before driving off and people in cars think 3kms isn’t far but when you’re walking and carrying camera equipment it’s pretty fucking far and then I’d have to walk back as well and fuck. that. Plus, I have a bunch of Zoom interviews set up for about an hour’s time and need to make sure I can get back to my car in time to put a different, less embarrassing shirt on for those.

After telling me to watch out for dirt bikes, he drives off and I wander a bit further up when I see a dragonfly and figure I may as well take a pic of that. I notice that it’s sitting funny, with its wings facing down more like a damselfly, but it’s only later when I get home that I see it has big antenna and seriously, what the fuck even IS this thing. I look it up and it turns out it’s an ‘owlfly’ and I’m pretty sure people are just making shit up now because an owlfly isn’t even a thing. Except it really is. And this is one of them. One site describes it as “the platypus of the insect world. Damselfly wings & tail, butterfly head & antennae and massive eyes from who knows where.” And I am pretty freaked out right now.

 

Who even knew an Owlfly was an actual thing? Do not even THINK about being a fucking smart ass and saying you did.

I end up walking back to my car and see a few small shit brown birds that may or may not have flown from Siberia, or possibly just from Semaphore where they went for some hot chips and a Copenhagen ice cream, just in time to do my first Zoom interview and watch some people stealing… sand. And I so wish I was joking.

 

Between interviews I head to one of the local wetlands where I park for about an hour while I do my next two interviews and it’s only while I’m parked here that I notice no less than four other cars park quite close to me to check out what I’m doing, with one guy actually getting out and walking up to my car before realising I’m on my phone and walking off again and holy fuck I’m at a gay beat! There I am looking for waterbirds and it seems I’m in the place to find something else entirely so I wrap up my last interview and get the fuck out of there. But not before I get a couple of phone numbers. Jokes. Maybe. Also, Jeff seems nice.

I then decide to hit one more spot near Globe Derby Park where I’m told you can see white winged fairy wrens and when I get there there’s literally no chance on god’s green earth I’m gonna spot a white winged fairy wren there and again, I’m pretty sure I’ve got more chance of getting mugged and having my camera gear stolen than I do of seeing a fairy wren. I do a lap anyway, trying to calculate how fast I can run with a massive camera on a massive tripod on my not massive shoulders, and decide my best bet will be to wade into the muddy, putrid pond if I get attacked and when I don’t have to do that, I decide that even though I saw fuck all birds, seeing an owlfly, not ending up on an unexpected man-date, and not being killed have made it a good day after all.

(Just in case you think I’m taking the piss, here’s a few birds you can actually see at the bird sanctuary:

Red Knot: Breeds in the high Arctic, then comes to SA to grab some rays.

Red-necked Stint. Nests in the Siberian tundra, then comes to SA to presumably drink beer and watch motor racing.

Grey Plover: They actually attached trackers to a couple of these birds and tracked them flying from SA to Taiwan where they had a two week stopover, before going on to their home in Shanghai China. It’s unclear whether or not they’ll be allowed back this year or if they’ll have to spend a couple of weeks in a medi hotel or with Dani Minogue in a luxury home on the Gold Coast.)