A BIRD’S EYE VIEW

With Kakadu National Park home to one-third of Australia’s bird species, the sky really is the limit when it comes to birdwatching there.

‘I t’s at 2 o’clock,” says our guide, Luke Paterson. “Watch the large boulder to the right of the main cliff face. Yes, there. It just popped its head up.”

As Paterson scrambles to set up the scope, the excitement level of my fellow birdwatchers reaches fever pitch. “This moment is worth my whole trip up here,” says Patrick from Melbourne. Adjusting my camera lens, I scan the area, desperate to share the joy. I see nothing.

“Here, check it out through the scope,” says Paterson. Squinting into the eyepiece, speckled brown feathers and a bobbing head emerge. “Wow,” I say, not wanting to appear underwhelmed. “Is it a pigeon?”

Well, at least my rookie question is half right. The chestnut-quilled rock pigeon is one of six endemic bird species in the Northern Territory’s Top End.

It’s 7.30am and we’ve already blitzed a rare sighting. Just a glimpse, but enough to pull out my species checklist and place a satisfying tick in a box. One tick, another 289 to go.

Kakadu National Park is about one-third the size of Tasmania, yet home to one-third of Australia’s total bird species. And in his 20 years in the park, Paterson has spotted 96 per cent of them.

I’ve joined one of Paterson’s NT Bird Specialists birdwatching day tours as part of Kakadu Bird Week, a festival held each September and October with tours, cruises, lectures, workshops, games and activities to celebrate all things avian.

“Bird Week started back in 2011 and, in the past few years, it has really started to gather momentum,” Paterson says. “Many people come from the UK and US, where birding is huge, but it’s great to see more Aussies getting involved.”

On a world scale, birding is big business. According to a report by the EU’s Centre for the Promotion of

Imports, since 2015, birdwatching has overtaken fishing as the most popular hobby in the UK.

And the latest figures from the US Fish and Wildlife Service reveal there are about 45 million designated birdwatchers in the US – nearly 15 per cent of the population.

A SOARING HOBBY

BirdLife Australia, the nation’s largest bird-conservation organisation, is seeing huge increases in the number of people involved in birdwatching. Initiating the Aussie Backyard Bird Count in 2014, the seven-day challenge is fast becoming the largest citizen science project in the country. The 2019 results saw 88,270 people (including many school groups) count 3.4 million birds. “One of the beautiful things about birding is anyone can do it,” says Paterson.

After riding the high of spotting an endemic bird, we leave the red escarpments of sandstone country and head to a monsoon forest in the East Alligator River area.

“Part of being a good birder is knowing where to look,” says Paterson. Overhead, noisy corellas gather in the canopy like a group of teenagers let out of school early. Flashes of red streak through the sauna-like air as black cockatoos swoop and the avian orchestra crescendos in a happy mix of trills and whistles. But amid the cacophony, Paterson hears the high-pitched call of a small but big-tick item on the species list. “If you sit and just watch and listen, the bird world is full of surprises.”

Obscured by thick foliage, the only clue a little kingfisher owns the angel song is a patch of iridescent blue. Keeping our distance, we peer through