As a self-proclaimed twitcher—a birdwatching extremist who travels around the country trying to catch a glimpse of as many species of birds as possible—the author took a year off in 2002 with the goal of seeing 700 birds and thereby breaking the national record for most birds seen in one year. In this amusing memoir, he recounts his quest, including how he spent all of his inheritance from the untimely death of his parents to make his dream a reality. Populated by unusual characters and interesting species of birds, this part confessional–part travelogue for both bird nerds and the general population follows the author as he works out what it means to be normal despite his unusually avid compulsion toward twitching.

While I would have a camera with me on my travels, it was hard enough just seeing the buggers in the first place, let alone getting close enough for long enough to focus a nicely framed shot. Some, like the aforementioned Buff-breasted Button-quail, have never been photographed in the wild. To take a happy snap of every species I intended to see would have taken considerably longer than a single year. For every bird I couldn’t photograph I could always try to ensure that I had another credible

that in order to have some privacy when answering the call of nature you have to walk for ages to ensure that when you squat down your camping companions don’t cop an eyeful. But I love the Box-Ironbark. It has a stately, dignified, almost melancholic beauty all its own. Dominated by flaky-barked Box trees and Ironbarks with their dark, deeply fissured trunks this is a uniquely Australian landscape. It is the country of the gold rush. It is the country of the bushranger. It is country that has

wasn’t kidding when I said I was passionate about Chiltern. So passionate I even invested here. Not necessarily in a financial sense as the block I bought is primarily for conservation purposes but if the property boom ever reaches Chiltern I may, unintentionally be sitting on quite a good investment. I bought the land from a conservation organisation called Trust for Nature who run what they call a Revolving Fund where the money they make from selling the property to me goes to buy the next

opportunities to see all of these species. I was beginning to worry though that if I was setting this trend of missing out on stuff this early, how would I go later in the year when I had little time for a second crack at anything? Only two weeks in and already I was doubting whether I could pull this thing off. If I kept dipping at this rate over the next few weeks I would have to seriously contemplate abandoning the whole thing. CHAPTER 7 19 January, Bunyip State Park, Victoria: 175

sending stinging salt spray in off the ocean horizontally, so that the microphone on my video camera totally packed it in, necessitating a thousand dollar replacement – the warranty covered everything except being stupid enough to expose the camera to salt. The squalls were so intense that whenever I did come across oystercatchers I lost them behind a grey curtain of rain if they moved more than ten metres from me. Eventually, after hours of hard slog, I came across a bird in a group of Aussie