The annual Birds Australia fundraising 2010 WA Twitchathon this year took place on Saturday the 12th December, starting at 5pm. It's a bird watching competition which you can take as seriously (the Main race) or as lightly (the Champagne Race) as you please. The aim is to have fun, see as many birds as you can in 24 hours and raise money by sponsorship for a bird conservation project.  

 The race has been run and won – unfortunately not by ecologia. Despite this we had a great race, finishing with a total of 141 bird species leaving us in equal fourth place. Long drives were the order of the day, and although it netted us many different birds we were unable to spend enough time at each location and find everything that should have been there. Something to keep in mind for next year, when ecologia will again return and have a shot at redemption and ultimate birding glory.  

  There were many highlights for the trip, including:

• Locating crested shrike-tit and painted button quail at Dryandra about 20 minutes before the official start time! Once 5 o’clock hit although we lost sight of the shrike-tit it was still calling so we ticked it, getting off to an amazing start.

• Seeing at least 5 Bush-stone Curlews sneaking through the bush about an hour before sundown, which is quite rare

• Driving approximately 4 hours through the night to Cheynes beach east of Albany, seeing 10 possums, numerous western grey roos, 4 tawny frogmouths, and the only boobook owl seen was by 2 people only, meaning we were unable to count it!

• The dawn chorus at the crisp hour of 4 am at Cheynes beach was awesome, and was where we saw our rarest bird, the Kelp Gull. It also signaled the start of a frantic 3 hours around Albany where we tallied up about 80 birds in very quick succession.

• Sea watching at the Gap in Albany was great, not just for the pelagic birds flying around but the stiff cool breeze and stunning scenery was one to remember

• Having only 2 hours back in Perth to race around to 4 different locations to get the easiest birds to see before the 5pm deadline. If we didn’t get these birds, our whole effort would have been wasted.

• Traveling over 1300 km in 24 hours, on a constant adrenaline packed charge

Surely with a refined route the ecologia Ruff Knights will be a ruff chance next year.

Click here for the Campaign recap http://birding-aus.org/?p=5839