LYING DEAD IN THE RED DIRT BY THE ROADSIDE, the desperately sad sight of an Australian Bustard wiped out out by a passing vehicle near Victoria River from my recent travels in Northern Territory. Janó had seen a very showy bird near this spot about a fortnight earlier, maybe the same individual? We saw so much roadside wildlife carnage in Australia, which left me thinking, surely you would have to be racing along, completely oblivious or bent on distruction to hit all these creatures? No doubt the unswervable road trains do a lot of it? We drove over 6000km in around two weeks and did not hit anything, although we saw plenty of things in our way in the road from kangaroos to water buffalos. I saw some live bustards later near Katherine but the needless death of this magnificent bird affected me for a while.
