Grasswrens and fairy-wrens.

Hi Graeme, I rarely post on Birding-Aus anymore and confess I haven’t seen a message I have wanted to respond to more than yours in a long time. I have seen lots of birds all around the world but my love for Grasswrens pretty much beats them all. They are the holy grail of Australian birds, enigmatic, difficult to see and only found in remote, inhospitable locations. My first Grasswren was a party of five White-throated Grasswrens bobbing along the escarpment at the top of Gunlom Falls in 2003. I found them after about 10 minutes of reaching the top of the falls. Of course this ease in finding my first Grasswren set me up for a great fall. I was lulled into a false sense of security that all future Grasswrens would appear so easily …how mistaken was I? Anyway, I had seen all species until the recent splits of the Striated so now I have to head out again to pick up another couple (something I am a little excited about:-) The main reason for this email is to thank you for your fantastic website which spurred me on to finding these elusive and charismatic birds. During the planning of my numerous trips I have studied the photos of their habitat and the range maps on your website on many, many occasions and have actually transcribed the ranges in different coloured highlighters to my old dog eared book of maps of Australia. I have to confess that even now seeing these highlighted areas in my map book still fills me with an urge to get out there again! Thanks for your advice over the years, I know you have encouraged many like me to have our own ‘Grasswren moments’ and no doubt also inspired the telling of more than a few birding ‘shaggy-dog’ stories around the campfire at night! Cheers, Carl Billingham