Michelle, the Fairy-Wren guru, spent the day getting Sara and me up to speed on our duties for the next few months. Basically, we will follow a population of Purple-Crowned Fairy-Wrens here at Mornington Station, trying to find every nest and monitor every individual bird. The Fairy-Wrens live along a section of Annie Creek, which flows right through the station, and particularly like a spiky, palm-like plant called pandanus.

Which means that Sara and I will spend our time tramping back and forth through riparian undergrowth, peering at Fairy-Wren legs to read color bands, and avoiding the worst afternoon heat. We will wake up at 4:30 each morning, work outside for a few hours, then do another field session late in the afternoon.

Michelle showed Sara and me our territories today along a 3-kilometer stretch of Annie Creek. I saw my first Purple-crowned Fairy-Wrens – the males are gorgeous, with bright purple foreheads, black ear patches, and long, expressive tails. In the afternoon, we went swimming to cool off. After sunset, I looked up to see the Southern Cross and distant flashes of heat lightning, while night birds made unfamiliar noises.

My alarm went off at 2:15 this morning in Perth. When I subsequently presented myself at the airline check-in counter, the attendant said, “Derby? You’ll be off to the mines, then?” I assured her that my business in Derby had more to do with wildlife than ore, and, after the captain quipped, “It’s way too early to be flying,” our plane reached into the Australian sunrise.

Derby is a tiny hamlet (“shire,” actually, according to the airport sign) on the northwest Australian coast. The town’s 4,000 residents, half of Aboriginal descent, are caught between the second-highest tide in the world (usually more than 40 feet) and the most expansive unsettled area of Australia (where I’m headed tomorrow). It was hot enough at 8:30 a.m. that sweat dripped down the back of my neck as I stepped on to the red dust.

I spent the day buying groceries (my last visit to a store for six months) and prowling mangroves. It’s nearly 100 degrees outside with little shade. Tomorrow, I’ll make the half-day drive on a single dirt road to Mornington with two other researcher-conservationists. It’s a grueling, desolate, and beautiful trip by most accounts, with nothing but bush along the way.

Last week, two guys attempted a creek crossing while driving the same route to Mornington. Their vehicle submerged in a flash flood and they both swam to shore, tried to build a signal fire, then walked 30 kilometers in 95-degree heat without water, slept by the side of the road, and reached help the next day. I sure hope we have a smoother trip!

At 5:45 a.m. this morning, I found Maris Lauva waiting outside my Perth hostel, ready for a long day of birding around town. We spent most of the time with Marcia and Bob, from Maryland, who had the day ashore in Perth on a 2-week cruise to Thailand. Turned out Marcia had been on a tour I led during the American Birding Association convention in Eugene a few years back. Small world!

Maris, a local birder, was extremely kind to show us Americans some nice birds. We hit wetlands, lakes, and “the bush,” racking up about 60 species throughout the day, half of which I’d never seen before. Not a cloud in the sky, temps in the 90s. After dropping Marcia and Bob back at their cruise ship for a 4:00 curfew, Maris and I headed into the foothills to watch several dozen Baudin’s Black-Cockatoos fly into an evening roost. The large, impressive parrots, silhouetted against the sunset, capped off an impressive day.