Say no more!
I recently spent a late arvo/evening beside the hide at Greenfields Wetland just north of Adelaide...a prettier industrial backdrop you canna imagine! I digress, I waited by the hide looking East to get onto a Spotted Crake that a friend of mine had seen earlier in the week. He also reported a couple of Baillon's chicks too but didn't get onto any adult birds. So, after about an hour I caught my first glimpse of a couple of puffy, fluffy chicks weaving between the reeds and occasionally onto the mud. Great, I thought....an adult MUST be about too. I fixed the bin's on the spot and got a great view of the adult Spotted Crake as it hung a little further back than the less-wily chicks. I dropped the bin's and aimed the scope for a better view, picked off (what I thought were....) the 'salient' features, longish yellow bill with red spot, white flecking through the sides of neck and shoulder, heavy barring from below the wings continuing into the vent/tail area.....blah, blah blah.
Got it. A new 'lifer' for me....whoopee!
So, I watched the bird and chicks for about 10-15 minutes until I noticed two slightly larger chicks emerge from the same section of reeds but about 4 metres further along. They allowed the Spotted's to move past without much fuss but didn't join the family as it moved further along the muddy bank. Hmmmmm, I wondered if these were the Baillon's chicks that I'd been told about.....yellow bills and black fuzz, not the best dissection of a birds physical features....but even with the scope there wasn't much else to go on, I tried to pick up the Spotted again, with the idea that i'd snap off a shot for the archive. I mounted the camera to the scope to get some snaps and then out it came in the glorious light of late evening!
....And the misery really began..."how the f*#k do people follow such skulking little birds with all this crap mounted on a scope and still fire off such great shots???" I mumbled to myself. I would see the bird, follow it, focus frantically and fire...over and over.
Over and over.
Finally, the birds disappeared and I packed it in, keen to see my images on the laptop at home.
Upon getting home, I pulled out then field guide, ready to enter my date/location info to give Spotted Crake the 'tick' but in the midst of finding the page and so on I started downloading my images....urgh! my heart sank....what happened? At what point did a ham-fisted Yeti commandeer my scope and camera? I must have missed it because the shots were dog-slapping awful! None of the images really delivered the stonking great view I had of the birds. Damn! Alas, I attached one image in an email to a the friend who tipped me off to their whereabouts and titled it, "Spotted Crake...at last!".
The next day in my inbox I saw his reply sitting there......"Congrats on the Baillons!"
...."the whatta?.....hey?"
It took me a few views to see it but I had 'arsed' myself a shot of a Baillon's when it was the Spotted I was sure I was looking at....double damn!
So, to cut a short story long...the bird I had seen earlier was NOT the bird i photographed. I feel a bit ripped off, like it's a bastard tick....just can't bring myself to tick either species given the confusion...it had me going back and forth, field guide to photos to google images and back for a good two days.
Hmmmmmm.
Nothing for it but to wait to see both species again...maybe i'll leave the camera at home?
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