36 Accidental Big Year
About this episode
Charuka Abhayawickrama did not set out to break a birdwatching record. He shares how photography led to an accidental Big Year, 773 bird species and a new way of supporting wildlife conservation.
Episode illustration: Carpentarian Grasswren
Charuka Abhayawickrama had a successful career in IT over 25 years. On his 45th birthday, he walked away from all his businesses and discovered a love of wildlife photography. When the pandemic hit, Charuka turned his attention to birds and in 2022 ended up doing an accidental Big Year. He ended up breaking the Australian record for number of birds photographed in one year. And he almost beat the Australian birdwatching Big Year record, seeing 773 bird species in total. Charuka is now a patron of many wildlife conservation projects that are close to his heart, both in Australia and Asia.
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Kirsty: Australia is home to the oldest continuing living culture in the entire world. The richness and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures in Australia is something we should all take pride in as a nation. I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation whose country this episode was recorded on. I pay my respects to the Elders, both past and present.
Kirsty: How did an amateur photographer, who hardly knew anything about birds to start with, manage to photograph 772 Australian bird species in one year? Find out in this episode of Weekend Birder. I'm Kirsty Costa, and if this is your first time tuning in, welcome. In this podcast, every day people share their birdwatching stories and advice. It's wholesome fun and you are in for a treat today with our guest Charuka Abhayawickrama. Here is how it all started for Charuka.
Charuka: I came to Australia as a student in 1994, so finished my uni and a master's degree and then had a career in some of the biggest companies in Australia, for example NRMA, Commonwealth Bank, and then finally started my own company. I had over 100 staff working for me in multiple businesses. It was quite a stressful time for me because even though you're making good money, but then the stress level is too much. I made a conscious decision to sell everything and just retire on my 45th birthday. That was in 2019. I was always a wildlife photographer and an underwater photographer. I actually got into the birds quite late. During pandemic, I always liked to travel outside Australia and see new places. Especially, I used to go to Asia for work. Those national parks have elephants and leopards and tigers, so big mammals. So I was always captivated by photographing them. But with the pandemic, we were housebound in March 2020, so I was looking around what I could photograph. So firstly I discovered my own backyard and I was fascinated by a number of birds that just exist in my own backyard. I didn't know the names and the behaviours of those birds. So I decided to join a few birding clubs, including Cumberland Bird Club and New South Wales Birding. With that I was able to connect with quite a lot of experienced birders and go outings with them. That was my start to be able to see more birds. And also photography is a big part of my life and then realised the bird photography is actually a completely different genre and it requires different techniques. So I quickly look around and what workshops are available and I found quite a few photographers in Sydney that actually participate in their workshops. And with that I gain quite a lot of knowledge of how to go about photographing these birds. So that that was my beginning.
Kirsty: The start of the pandemic, combined with Charuka's interest in wildlife photography, led to what he calls an 'accidental Big Year'. So what is a Big Year?
Charuka: So the Big Year is actually a birder goes out to see as many birds as possible from 1st of January to 31st of December. You know, the Big Year is actually a big thing in America. I found it's not that big in Australia. So the way I did it is completely different. I didn't have much knowledge about the birds and I quickly discovered the birding is all come down to credibility and your reputation as an amateur birder and who have very little knowledge about birds. I couldn't go out to places and claim that I saw a certain number of birds, so therefore the only way I could prove that I saw these birds is actually to photograph them. So I decided only count the birds that I managed to photograph. So that's why it became a tough year because of sometimes hearing the birds is easy. Seeing them is not that difficult, but to photograph them can be very challenging. It was all part of the fun to go out there, enjoy the journey and seeing and these birds in their natural habitat and to captivate that moment was actually the driving me to go out and do this. And the Big Year can be anything. You know, you can you can do a Big Year in your street within a year. How many birds that you see in your street or in your suburb or in your state? A few friends who have done Big Years in New South Wales who have done in South Australia. So it doesn't have to be a country or in the world, but it can be any geographic area that you decided to do that can be your project to achieve what you set out to achieve.
Kirsty: In 2022, Charuka aimed to photograph 600 Australian species of birds in one year. This is how he kicked things off.
Charuka: We were going to drive down to Murray-Sunset (National Park) and on 1st of January I actually wanted to photograph a Red-lored Whistler. That bird is a very rare bird and actually that is a bird that eluded me for a year and a half. So every time I go there, either I get a glimpse of the bird or I just didn't get a good photo. So I thought it would be important for me to start with this bird. Unfortunately, on the 31st of December evening, as I was driving towards Murray-Sunset, I thought I would fill my petrol tank so that I don't have to worry for next two days. Unfortunately, I ended up putting Adblue (diesel petrol) to my car and car stopped after 500m. So this is December 31st at night and where everybody's havingparties. I was stuck on the roadside, helpless. So anyway, to make the story short, on the New Year Day, I managed to tow the car to Mildura and drained by petrol tank and sort that out, then decided, "Okay, maybe it's bad luck to photograph Red-lored Whistler". As I drove towards to those areas, then we found a seven emus. So I thought, "Okay, that's an iconic bird for Australia, you know. That's right. And fitting for me to photograph the first bird". My friends describe that anything I do, I do it extreme and and I tend to go hard. Well, I thought that I could see 600 birds in a year, but 708 hundred would be it. I didn't think that I could get that far. So I actually set up a realistic goal because some of the birds that, you know, in different geographic areas, they occur. So when you plan your trips and you know that you give enough time to those areas that you can see those birds. So my original thinking was that that I could see those, you know, 600 birds. Because that reach 600 birds almost by the middle of the year, by June, and by then I had trips paid and waiting to happen - Macquarie Island, Christmas Island, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island. So I know that with those trips I could get an extra 100 or 100+ birds. But I never in my wildest imagination thought that I will be able to photograph 772 birds! Where I started and the number of friends I made towards the end and amount of help I got help and guidance was amazing. Many people was following my journey. They warned me to to reach this goal and they've been telling me, "Okay, have you have you got this bird? I can help you to get see this bird". And just like that, that I made friends. And then we make plans to go on a trip with the 1 or 2 friends or a group and then go on and got the photograph. It's just not about the birds. It's about the journey and going to these locations and meeting new people. And I must say also because when you go to a city, I used to go to all the nicest places, but once you become a birder, the three places that you go is actually the, you know, the waste treatment plant, the the rubbish tip and the possibly the cemetery. And there are the three locations in any town you are likely to see some cool birds. So to learn all those things took time. And when you go to these small towns in outback Australia and to see these birds was fascinating for me.
Kirsty: When a Big Year involves 772 Australian birds, it can be hard to create a small list of highlights. One that springs to mind for Charuka was the time that he saw the White-throated Grasswren in western Arnhem Land on Bininj Country.
Charuka: It was a memorable trip because it was a difficult hike and we didn't know that we are going to encounter these birds in those locations. You know when you have a probability of, let's say less than 5% of seeing a bird, and then you take that chance and, you know, climb up an escarpment. By 10:00 in the morning, it gets 40 degrees. To plan and execute and photograph that bird was an amazing experience. You think that you may see the bird and then you don't see the bird and then you walk around in the spin of a grass for hours. Then all of a sudden you hear the birds calling and you know the birds is there. So then you know, half of your task is complete. Then it's a matter of positioning yourself, waiting for the bird to come out and take that first photo. The feeling of you actually setting your focus onto the eye of the bird clicking that photo is the most amazing feeling. Going to Ashmore Reef, going to Cocos Islands and see, you know, vagrant birds and migratory birds was also a highlight. And also the islands, the Lord Howe was amazing place. I've lived in Australia for 28 years, but I never been to these places. It's a place that you can do many things, like you can go scuba diving, you can do birdwatching hiking to discover the island was so great. And also the Norfolk Island, you know, that was our family trip to have all my family members go there was great because most of these trips that I had to go solo except the Norfolk Island and the Lord Howe Island. So having them by my side and help, you know, they are helping me to see this bird was was really good.
Kirsty: During his Big Year, Charuka visited many remote areas of Australia. He went to Credo Station in Western Australia and spent 11 hours searching for the Scarlet-chested Parrot. He went to Mount Isa in Queensland to photograph the Kalkadoon Grasswren and the Carpentarian Grasswren. Knowledge of endemic and vagrant birds really helped Charuka. This is his explanation of these two types of bird categories.
Charuka: The endemic birds are birds that occur in a particular geographic area. They only occur in that area. So, for example, Australia has about 900 birds. Out of that, maybe about 46% birds are endemic to Australia. So if you are a listener from overseas and if you are a keen birder, Australia is a destination that you cannot avoid because 46% of the Australian birds only occur in Australia. So within Australia various geographic areas you find endemic birds. So when did my Big Year you have to go to a certain location to get that bird because that bird only occur in that area. So some of the examples are I had to go to Iron Range in the far north Queensland in the wet season just to get Red-bellied Pitta because that bird come from Papua New Guinea to Australia during wet season. So during the wet season the the roads get cut off. So the only way you can get there is actually you need to fly from Cairns to Lockhart River. There are also endemic birds in Darwin top and the Kimberleys and the south west Western Australia, also in outback Coober Pedy, Alice Springs. So there are various birds that you need to identify them and go to those locations to photograph those birds. It was interesting because as you know that my knowledge about birding is was growing from the 1st of January towards the end of the year. So the vagrant birds are actually, I would say, more like accidental birds. They come to Australia where they're not supposed to be there. So typically they get caught to a storm or the kind of weather event and they go on the wrong direction. They end up in Australia. So usually if you are a keen birder, like a more like a twitcher, you always like to chase that kind of birds because when they start seeing in Australia. If you don't get them in that time, you may never get them again because they may never come again or there could be only one bird. The hotspot for vagrant birds are more like at the top-end of Australia because most birds tend to come from Asia and far north China and Russian forest. So when I did the Big Year that this is a big part of this because I need to get certain number of vagrant birds, so only way to get them is the hotspots were Broome, Christmas Island, Cocos Island, Ashmore Reef. So I found it interesting because sometimes these birds are so beautiful in Asia, but same bird in Australia because they come through a bad weather event or they are disoriented, they're not that pretty. But at the same time it's actually a new bird for Australia, for example, we end up photographing an Amur Stonechat. That's think a first or second record for Australia and territories. So that was a big deal for us to find that bird and add to our list.
Kirsty: You now have two terms - 'endemic' and 'vagrant' - that you can use when identifying birds and in conversation with other birdwatchers. Charuka's Big Year ended on Macquarie Island. This island is really special. It's 1500km south east of Tasmania, approximately halfway between Australia and Antarctica. It's remote and windswept landscape of steep escarpments lakes and dramatic changes in vegetation attract huge groups of wildlife, including penguins and seals. If you've never heard of this island before, Charuka highly recommends that you look at some photos online.
Charuka: The birdlife so amazing and so many birds. But if you are a bird lover, think you cannot avoid not going to Macquarie Islands and you need to go there before you go to Antarctica. It's a group of birds that you see when you go to Macquarie Island, like for example, Gentoo Penguin, Royal Penguin, King Penguin, Quarry Shag. There are also few rare birds that I saw, some of them more Subantarctic Shearwater, Salvin's Prion. So these were my last birds that I saw on the Christmas Eve. I decided to end my Big Year because I was actually with newly made friends, but I was not with my family. So I felt, "Oh, is it all worth it to keep pushing?". Because I had already planned to go to Darwin on the 30th and Perth on 31st to get former birds. By then I had made friends with John Weigel, who actually has the record for Australia. He said that he has 778 birds, so I know that if I push through I would get this four birds. But at the same time I thought it's important for me to come back to my family and spend the year with them because I already missed the beginning of the year because I was stuck in Murray-Sunset. So all these things were going through my mind and playing tricks on my mind. And then in the end, I thought, "Hey! 772 birds photographed is actually a good effort!". And when I started this, I didn't know about any of those records or who's done before because it was just my personal journey. I was trying to, you know, compete against myself to better myself in everything I did in terms of photography, understanding of the birds, meeting people and seeing Australia. That was a big part of this trip for me. I felt by Christmas Day that I have achieved what I needed to achieve and it was time for me to come home. So that's what I did.
Kirsty: Dreaming of your own Big Year? Charuka has some pretty solid advice for you. This includes pelagics, which is where people get in a boat and go out into the open ocean to watch seabirds.
Charuka: If you want to do your own Big Year and you have to plan and also not plan. If you can understand that because of some of the things you can never plan because you just don't know when the birds are going to turn up in location. You got to be prepared to go to wherever you have to go to. And in the 2022, we had to move our birthdays and anniversaries to the dates that suit the time that I'm home. For example, if I've gone to Western Australia, come back one week later after one of my daughter's birthdays, that would be the day that we celebrate the birthday. So you have to have a family that's flexible enough for you to do what you want to do. In terms of planning, I think you need to plan. There's a lot of migratory birds come to Australia, so you need to look at the the timing of that. Also, there are about 900 birds out of that. Maybe about 150 birds are pelagic birds. So you really need to go on boat trips to see these birds. Got quite a number of birds from Tasmania, Eaglehawk Neck pelagic because I did about six of those pelagics and did a Kiama pelagics maybe about five. And I think I missed out on doing any pelagic from Western Australia or Southport. If I had planned better and that would have been something I would have done. Anyone who is doing a Big Year, I think the eBird is actually a good source of information and finding where the birds are. So number one is actually ebird. Number two is actually the local birding club because there are members with wealth of knowledge, some of the members have been doing for years. So picking their brain and going with them can be very helpful. And the next thing is the social media and you know, Facebook and there are people posting birds they photograph every day. Most of the time I make friends on Facebook before we actually meet them face to face. So exchanging information is actually a big thing. And also some of the trips that you need to do there would be going to Torres Strait Islands, Macquarie Islands, Christmas Island and Cocos Island and Ashmore Reef. So you need to plan where ahead because some of those trips can be booked out for 2 or 3 years ahead. The reason I always like to say this is an accidental Big Year is actually in October. Didn't even know that I was going to go to Ashmore Reef because I was in Norfolk Island with my family before that. I ask the organisers that can go on the Ashmore Reef trip and I was told it's been booked out for two years. But in October they called me and said, "Do you want to go?". Even then I said, "Okay, I need 2 or 3 days. Time to decide because I'm already in Norfolk Island. When I come back to mainland, only I can organise logistic"s. During those three days, this spot was offered to many other birders, so I think I was destined to go on that trip. That trip got me 19 new birds. So without that 19 birds I wouldn't be able to get to 772. It was unplanned, but it happened. So you need to be flexible and at the same time well-organized. So for example, I drove about 600km from Perth on my own looking for that bird and I camped overnight and I photographed that bird. So the feeling of achieving that kind of thing is so amazing because you put in a lot of effort and you go to a place and you wait and wait and and wait. Then finally the bird show up. And that's so amazing. If you do a Big Year in Australia, you need a big budget. I'm not going to deny that because Macquarie Island trip is actually only way you can go there is through a cruise. So the cruise ship is actually can be quite expensive. And so as Ashmore Reef or Torres Strait Islands because you need to do boat trips, so you cannot avoid that. But it depends on your budget. You know, I know friends who have done Big Years in New South Wales, Big Years in South Australia. Some of them just drive. Once you do this one, there's no trophy, there's no certificate. Only thing you're going to get is a self satisfaction or self realization of many things. So it's up to you how you plan and you do it because at the end of the day, this is a great thing to do because some of the benefits you don't even know until you get them. I made friends, lifelong friends. And without this trip going to those places, I wouldn't have met those people and people who like nature, who like wildlife generally, tend to be nice people through this journey that I've collected so many friends. So that's that is the reward for me.
Kirsty: Charuka encourages you just to enjoy getting outside to birdwatch or take photos and to share your love of wild birds with the people around you. You never know where that might lead.
Charuka: I got inspired because I saw other people taking photographs and I was fascinated by those photos and then wanted to do the same. And then during my journey, I learned about a lot of birds and also first hand experience, the habitat loss and also feral animals roaming around in our national parks by going out there in the field that you actually experience them and then you actually meet people who are really doing good work to make a difference. You always find a way to how you can help them. And that's what I found because I met some so many amazing people doing wonderful work. So wherever possible, I just can contribute to their projects. And if everybody do their small bit of contribution, that's just going to be a massive thing for beginners. Yeah. Get out there with your camera. Enjoy!
Kirsty: Many thanks to Charuka for sharing his accidental Big Year story with us. If you would like to know more links to Charuka's website photos and social media can be found in the episode notes and on the weekend Bird a website. Many thanks to Joshua Bergmark for sharing his recording of the White-throated Grasswren on the xeno-canto website. If you like listening to this podcast, it would be so awesome if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. Turns out it really makes a difference! Thanks so much for telling your mates and for all your ongoing support.
