11
Oct
A friend had been sending photos of the local Curlew down to me in Sydney for a few months, in the hope of seducing me into a visit up to the North Coast to mind his dog and cat in Kingscliff whilst they travelled to Europe. He knew that as a keen birder, I would love to get a chance to watch these cute yet awkward creatures.
I couldn’t resist so I travelled the 800km to spend a week walking Nero and snuggling Betsy and venturing out each day to observe and photograph the local birdlife. It was the second last day and I still hadn’t seen the Bush-stone Curlew.
A day earlier, the dog had thrown me into a parked car as I tried to restrain him from acting aggressively toward another dog so I altered our route when something different caught my eye. We ventured down Pacific Street to have a look and walked straight into a pair of Curlew. They walked across the street in their awkward way, head down with long strides. Thankfully the dog was not bothered by them at all so we watched them mill about for a bit. I didn’t have my camera with me (of course) so I decided to return to the street a little later with the camera and without the dog.
There is a paddock at the end of the street and I was content to watch the Cattle Egret graze around with the cows hoping the Curlew would return. Of course, what I didn’t realise is that the Bush-stone Curlew are nocturnal and the only reason I saw them earlier was because they were returning after an all-nighter!
With the sun pleasantly warming my back, I resolved to continue watching the birds in the paddock for a while in any case. when a grimalkin ventured from her home and attempted to kill me with her evil stare. When that didn’t work, she walked down to her front yard and stood with her arms crossed and hostile stance hoping to intimidate me. Ha! Not a chance. I knew that I was well within my rights to stand on a public road. What I regret is that I didn’t photograph her. That would have been awesome.
I returned in the afternoon only to be confronted aggressively by another neighbour who yelled at me from her front door. “There are endangered birds here. You better watch that dog or you’ll be fined!” I was triggered by her hostility and stood frozen unable to speak.
I’d say these women have tiny lives with little else to do than to terrorise people in the name of protecting birdlife. I think there are better and kinder ways of doing so.
On my last morning in Kingscliff, I was again out walking the dog when we happened to walk right into the Curlew a little further down the road from Pacific Street. Nero was perfectly behaved as I asked him to wait while I took photos of these night adventurers returning home.
While I didn’t get amazing photos of the Curlew, I enjoyed watching them. Their behaviour is fascinating and I couldn’t help but smile to myself knowing these two violent vigilantes would have been steaming had they known about this encounter.
You can read some more about the Curlew, on BirdLife Australia’s site. You’ll see the Curlew’s status is of Least Concern though their numbers have been radically reduced.
Until next time, happy birding. N x
