Passion or Insanity? Why not both?

The time a fellow birder and I drove over 110km out of our way to spend a day searching for the rusty grasswren (Amytornis striatus. rowleyi) but instead found an overly friendly dutch fossicker who would not let us alone on our hunt until we learnt to fossick for opal…

That was the day I fully realised just how bizarre birders are to the outside world. The dutch fossicker could simply not fathom two young people travelling to the middle of no where on the off chance of sighting or even hearing a bird. To her, this was Opalton, a place to fossick for opal. Definitely not a place to crouch between clumps of spinifex and listen for a bird.

We never did find the grasswren but we did learn about opal fossicking.