Bush Stone Curlew browses the boutiques

Earlier this year a member of the public called WIRES to say that a bird of some sort was running up and down Cross Street in Double Bay, Sydney (a very exclusive shopping area). At times it paused to admire its reflection in the plate glass window of the delicatessen.

A WIRES rescuer caught the bird without much trouble and took it to a WIRES carer who is also the NSW Conservation Officer of the Australasian Wader Studies Group.

The bird was a juvenile bush stone curlew, a species listed as endangered in NSW. It was uninjured and had probably simply ended up in the wrong place during dispersal.

The WIRES carer enlisted the invaluable input of Alan Morris, currently the designated bird bander for this species, and Catherine Price, who is involved in monitoring the local population of bush stone curlews.

The bird was rapidly moved out of its temporary lodging in an aviary (which it did not appreciate), and banded with a numbered band on the left leg and a pink metal colour band on the right leg and released in the Saratoga Wetlands on Broken Bay at 7.30 pm the same evening. Bush stone curlews are resident at this site and a single male is present.

A feather has been taken for DNA analysis and it is hoped that the bird will turn out to be a female.

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