'FLIGHT LINES' by Andrew Darby

What a wonderful book!

This book should be on the must read list of every birder, every conservationist and everyone who cares about global warming.  It is essential reading.

Flight Lines is eminently readable - the first requirement I look for in a book, and one where a surprising number of otherwise good books fail.

Darby follows two Grey Plovers on their migration from Thompson Beach north of Adelaide to Wrangel Island, a tiny Russian dot in the Arctic Ocean.  On the way he pauses to give us a glimpse of his love affair with Spoon-billed Sandpipers.  There is much depressing information about mankind's efforts to annihilate waders' habitat, but yet, there is a little uplifting news too, such as the fact that China has banned reclamation in the Bohai Sea area (p. 250).

I'm sure I'm not alone in getting a thrill of seeing someone I've met mentioned in a book.  There are lots of 'names' here:  from Clive Minton to Nigel Jacket, Adrian Boyle and Chris Hassell, from Stephen Garnett to Denis Abbott.

In passing Darby notes (p. 220) that there are 828 Australian bird species.  I'd love to know how he came up with this figure.  I've seen 827 and I still have a few to go (Black-eared Catbird, White-throated Grasswren, Swinhoe's Snipe and famously, White-necked Petrel - also quite a few rarer ones such as Garganey).

If I am permitted one complaint:  it is the index.  I had thought we birders had made our opinion abundantly clear when CSIRO published 'The Australian Bird Guide' (Menkhorst et al) in 2017 and indexed Grey Plover under 'G' instead of 'P.'  To see Allen & Unwin following suit three years later is most disappointing.  We cannot allow this unbearably un-userfriendly trend to become the norm.  I am not pretending to be an expert on indexing, but I have been looking things up in indexes for over sixty years and I look for Grey Plover under 'P' not 'G'!  If he wants to be consistent, why doesn't he index Clive Minton under 'C'?  (Incidentally, I've never heard of a Dunlin being called a 'Dunlin Plover.')

It's a shame about the index.  In my opinion, this stops an excellent book from being perfect.

BIRDING IS DANGEROUS!

On Saturday, 30 May 2020, delighted to be freed of the constraints of lockdown, I went birding.  First stop Dandenong Valley wetlands where I admired a Brown Goshawk and several Little Lorikeets.  I had really wanted to see some crakes and secretly hoped for a bittern.  However, there was nothing special.  I didn't mind.  It was wonderful to be in the field again.  I hadn't been birding since my Kiama pelagic in February.

I really wanted to see a crake.  This beautiful photo of an Australian Crake was taken by Ken Haines.

On the way home, I thought I'd call in to Jumping Creek Reserve, but the road was closed.  Later, I learnt that many reserves had been closed because people had embraced the freedom to visit parks so enthusiastically that there was overcrowding.  Appropriate social distancing was not possible and the easiest solution was to close various parks. 

Instead, I visited Koornung, which has been on my list of places I wanted to check out ever since I moved to North Warrandyte.  A pleasant bush track follows the river.  This is very close to where I live and the birds were much the same.  Lots of parrots, thornbills, honeyeaters.  Happily thinking of no more than what I'd have for lunch, I tripped on a tree root and ended up flat on my face in the mud.  Alas, I was hurt.  Turned out I broke my hip.  Into the Austin hospital (thanks to all those wonderful neighbours who rallied around and helped) where they operated on Sunday.

By Monday I was facing up to physio and by Wednesday 3 June I was home.

Whenever I start to feel sorry for myself, I look out the window.  Invariably a fairywren hops past, a spinebill flits to the birdbath or a scrubwren forages in my garden.  No medicine could aid my recovery as well as the sight of a delightful little fairywren.