Sean Dooley

It has fossilized footprints of a dinosaur stampede.

The way that they've set the whole thing up is just incredible.

And what's even better is the spot where that quarry is, you walk out and there are also rufous crowned emu wrens and opalton grass wrens in the spinifex surrounding the area, as well as my nemesis bird, the grey falcon.

I actually saw my first ever grey falcon the same day I saw my first dinosaur stampede.

So yeah, that Winton species is pretty special to me too.

To be honest, the self-assessment is in the eye of the beholder.

I know in the Aussie Bird Count, we ask people who are participating to mark whether they're advanced, intermediate or beginners.

And then when we do the vetting, we sort of naturally assume that people who've marked themselves as experts

would be more reliable and we wouldn't have to vet scrutinizers closely because they're going to know what they're seeing.

That's not actually the case.

A lot of the people who've ticked advanced are the ones with the most fanciful sightings.

So I think self-assessment has its flaws, and I certainly don't... It's funny, I often get introduced as an expert, or even sometimes, like, you know, Australia's leading bird expert, and it just makes me cringe because there are so many people who know so much more about birds than I do, and I still feel I'm learning all the time.

Every day I learn something new, and so I still don't feel like I'm an expert, but I think I know...

quite a bit about a lot of things to do with birds from not just identification, but to behaviors and to distribution and conservation status and things.

So I guess I, you know, I have to say, yeah, it's not false modesty to say, yeah, I'm an expert, but I reckon Jonah's spot on about the

getting, knowing that impression.

I think you know you've crossed the threshold when you are bird, birding without realising, when you're noticing without noticing.

And it's when you suddenly, you'll be walking along and someone will say, what's that bird calling?

And you realise that you've already identified it as a grey butcher bird calling without even having it at the forefront of your mind.

It's, it's like, I think once you, when you learn a language,