A far cry from twitching, at Bird Week in Kakadu national park, Alexis Buxton-Collins finds a chance to slow down
“There are two rules you need to follow on board,” Luke Paterson informs me as I step on to a large flat-bottomed boat. The first is to keep my limbs inside to avoid tempting the myriad crocs that call these waters home, and the second is just as important: never use the t word.
“In the birding community, birders are enthusiasts,” he explains, “but twitchers are real list tickers who’ll drop anything at the promise of seeing a rare bird.” Though some obsessives self-identify as twitchers, they’re few and far between and the consensus in our group is that placing too much focus on list-ticking saps much of the joy from this pursuit.