Stone-curlew out in the open

Bush Stone-curlew pauses cautiously as I crawl across wallaby droppings to get a ground level picture with the cryptic plumaged bird standing against a contrasting background. It's a bit of a game we've been playing off and on for two weeks. And it's taken two weeks to get half a useful shot. Usually the bird crouches down amid the debris left by a scrub-crunching machine and almost vanishes before one's eyes.

There's also a back story. The bird is one of a pair that stuck for months with a juvenile injured in a leg and almost certainly unable to forage effectively. The two parents recently returned alone to their former daytime standing place. Their effort was doomed to fail. But parents are parents and - whatever the species - go to extraordinary lengths for their young.

It is also curious that the two birds choose to stand alone and not mingle with 30 and more Stone-curlews in a small stand of paperbarks close to the Ingham town margin of the wetlands.