Occasionally the larger, whiter contours of a Shy Albatross angles through the masses. You start counting: fifty, one hundred, two hundred… In five minutes you reach a thousand. Already the birds have been passing for several hours, so imagine the total numbers: hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. From your shelter, beneath the sculpted granite of Remarkable Rocks, you lower your binoculars and soak up the spectacle.
At the same time, a very different landscape 2,000km to the north is staging an equally impressive avian drama. Approaching the water’s edge at Mamukala Wetlands you hear the spectacle before you see it: a low murmuring, like a distant crowd in animated conversation. Only when you get closer, peering through the window of the bird hide, do you realise that this is the…
