You know that feeling when things are superficially familiar, yet different enough to be a little unsettling? The Australian countryside is like that. Driving out of Sydney through the farmlands of New South Wales, you are surrounded by pastoral hills full of grazing cattle, with streams and little copses of trees. But the birds gliding above these farms are not sparrows and blackbirds, they're parrots and ibises.
We drove along progressivly smaller and smaller roads, until the road ended abruptly at a little car ferry which was to be our passage to Coomerong Island and it's renowned Predator-Free Reserve. It's a beautiful spot, with white sandy beaches backing up on an inviting forest. But again the familiarity is a thin disguise. The "coastal pine trees" of the forest are in fact Casuarnia Sheoaks, a strange tree with segmented needle-shaped leaves that look like clumps of swamp reeds. And the lovely "poplars" are just another one of Australia's 700 species of eucalyptus.
Perched on a post in this almost-familiar landscape was an almost-familiar bird. The Willie Wagtail is a bug hunter, watching from an exposed perch until he leaps up with acrobatic skill to nab a insect mid-fight. When he lands, he characteristically bobs his long black tail. This is precisely the behavior of North America's own Eastern Kingbird, a favorite back home, and a near twin in plumage, size, and behavior of the Willie Wagtail. Despite this striking case of convergent evolution, the Eastern Kingbird is more closely related to the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher with his striking white-on-pink plumage and ten inch tail. Nonetheless, the Willie Wagtail's is an invitingly friendly sight.
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