A short article I submitted to the Birds Queensland newsletter covering my first Twitchathon. “But, Chelsea, is a Twitchathon just you spending an absurdly long time watching Zoomers play games on Twitch?” I hear you asking. God, no. It has nothing to do with the live-streaming platform bur rather it’s more like real-life Pokemon Go! but for bird nerds. Just read the damn article.
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4:43 a.m. Sunday morning. I’m jolted awake by the crazed cackle of Laughing Kookaburras carrying on like a gaggle of divorcees who’ve had three too many martinis at a comedy show.
Two minutes later, my alarm clock croons. It’s time.
Today, I’m off on my first ever Twitchathon of the eco variety––a 12-hour birding extravaganza with the objective of spotting as many birds as possible traveling only by foot, bicycle or public transportation, all to raise money to support research and conservation of Queensland’s birds.
I rendezvous with The Puffin Ducks team members, Judith and Esther, at Lindum train station. I’ve never met them but take my chances that the ladies with binocular necklaces huddled around the car boot aren’t members of a splinter Twitchathon group.
Pleasantries are made. The twitch starts at 6 a.m. sharp. Bins are poised, miniature notepads are drawn. An immediate shotgun of sightings from J and E: Pied Butcherbird, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Australian Magpie. I clumsily unfurl my bulky binoculars and in a nervous fog start recording bird sightings in Sharpie on the back of a folded A4 paper, the initial twitch panic severely clouding my judgment of writing implement. (Eventually, I settle enough to find my pen.)
With steely determination we march down Sibley Road toward wetlands. “Did you hear that Striated Pardalote?” asks Esther. No, I did not, but Judith did and according to the Twitchathon commandments if at least two members of the group hear or see a bird then it counts. S.P., tick.
The first many birds spotted seem quite ordinary to me, the virgin birder, but cause a contagious flutter of excitement within the group. Mangrove Gerygone. Leaden Flycatcher. Rufous Whistler. Tick, tick, tick.
We forge from wetlands to abandoned chicken factories and I see many more magnificent firsts: Royal Spoonbill, Double-barred Finches, Sacred Kingfisher, Brahminy Kite, Mistletoebird. Tick, tick, tick, my bird brain is on the verge of exploding.
Esther and Judith rattle off distinctive features of each bird spotted. As I scramble to commit this information to memory it dawns on me that these innocent looking ladies are birdwatching weapons, ornithological ninjas.
We head toward Sandy Camp; a wetland J and E appear to know intimately. We spot many beautiful birds in the ugly perimeter of a power plant, from Black-faced Cuckooshrikes to Red-backed Fairywrens. It’s as if their binoculars contain bird magnets; wherever they point them feathered friends appear. Comb-headed Jacanas, Oriental Dollarbird, Wandering Whistling Ducks, plus many more ticks amongst the marshy innards. We still hear (but don’t see) that damned Striated Pardalote.
The Puffin Ducks decide to swerve our final destination at Wynnum and call it quits around 3:30 p.m. I am puffed. As we sit to tally our twitches, Esther pulls one last act of avian shrewdness. “Look, an Eastern Osprey.” I can’t see it… until I do. Through magnified circles I see this beast of a bird land on its nest towering heavenly above the ground. Fish-eating bird of prey, tick.
