I was a hardcore twitcher. I understand why the Cocos booby has Australia’s birders in a frenzy | Andrew Stafford
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- A black-headed gull was discovered in Geraldton, Western Australia, with BirdLife Australia's Rarities Committee recording it at least 10 times previously in Australia.
- Australia's first Cocos booby, an eastern Pacific seabird recently split as its own species, was identified on 26 May on the NSW Central Coast, drawing an estimated 200 twitchers to kayak out on Lake Macquarie.
- The species split recognising the Cocos booby ballooned the author's list of un-seen Australian breeding birds from a "measly four" to more than a dozen, with the Cocos booby initially mistaken for a common brown booby.
- Author Andrew Stafford recounts a 2001 sailing trip from Broome to Ashmore Reef during the Tampa election campaign, where his group encountered a customs vessel holding about 200 asylum seekers; his resulting Sydney Morning Herald story got him banned by the tour operator.
- In 2007, Stafford flew Brisbane to Perth and drove 1,638km to Whim Creek in the Pilbara to twitch a red-legged crake, arriving to learn a feral cat had eaten the bird a day or two earlier.
- The term "twitcher" traces to 1950s British birder Howard Medhurst, whose cold-induced shivering on the back of a motorcycle was mistaken for excitement by friends.
- Mike Carter, credited with bringing twitching to Australia from the UK, held the record for most birds seen within Australia until his death aged 89 in 2024, and mentored Sean Dooley, author of The Big Twitch and BirdLife Australia's public affairs manager.
Why it matters: The Cocos booby is the first confirmed individual of a species only recently split from the brown booby on genetic and morphological grounds, instantly changing Australian life lists and pulling roughly 200 dedicated birders to Lake Macquarie by kayak. The piece also frames twitchers as early citizen scientists whose field reports have advanced ornithology on distribution and dispersal, while acknowledging the hobby's carbon footprint as a long-running tension within birding culture.
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