Red “Pindan” soils and limestone formations surrounding Roebuck Bay, near Broome in Western Australia

Within an hour of our arrival in Broome, we met most of the 30-member team — our colleagues for the next ten days. Clive Minton leads the group as he has done for the last 28 — years ever since he drove […]

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Nourlangie, a outlier of the Arnhem Land escarpment of red sandstone, in Kakadu National Park, NT
After a short ride from Kakadu National Park, we pulled into the town of Katherine and, after a quick re-supply, took the paved road to Katherine Gorge National Park. The Northern Territory (an Australian state) manages the park even though […]

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Roadside warnings about swimming near Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia
We stayed Sunday night at Edith Falls National Park, just north of Katherine, and got a quick lesson in Australian ants. Our first acquaintance was at Devils Marbles. While Mandy raised the tent, I started dinner on the portable gas grill. Beneath us roamed […]

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By day three we flew through fertile southeast Australia and pushed into the barren deserts in the center of the continent. The contrast couldn’t have been greater. In both places, phrases like “up the road apiece” mean nothing. For the most part nothing lies up the road and the distance between places keeps getting longer. […]

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For the last seven years, our shorebird blogs have focused on our work in North and South America, from the tundra of the Canadian Arctic to the pampas of Tierra del Fuego. This blog will be different. Although eventually it will describe a shorebird expedition, this time to northwest Australia, it will also describe our […]

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We spent the last day in the field re-surveying Mt. Pelly for red knots. With the coordinates of the three nests found in 1999-2003, we used GPS to cover much of the area we had surveyed at the start of the trip but without success. We went back to Mt. Pelly that evening to listen […]

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A cold wet fog ended the long run of unseasonably warm weather we’ve had since our arrival on Victoria Island. Normal for this time of year is a high of about 46 degrees but over the last five days we have basked in temperatures as high as 75 degrees. Although most of the town of […]

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Last year our banding crew doubled the food budget. Imagine what 20 or so people working hard all day would eat over a month long period. But I’m not complaining. After all, food is a minor cost for all our team does, oftentimes working from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. […]

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