Bird bonanza: Lord Howe Island, 430 miles off Sydney, Australia, is all about birds. The sparsely developed Pacific speck is the habitat for half a million birds – including the booby bird species.
Courtesy of Tourism New South Wales
Lord Howe Island: Strange birds in paradise
You may half expect to see pterodactyls wheeling in the mist – but you can count on a currawong divebombing you.
By Nick Squires | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
LORD HOWE ISLAND, AUSTRALIA - The blow to the back of my head came with such unexpected force that it knocked me to my knees. I was hiking through a forest of slender palm trees on this boomerang-shaped sliver of land off the east coast of Australia when the attack happened.
A deranged local perhaps, one of the 320 who inhabit this subtropical speck in the South Pacific? Or a crazed tourist gone mad over the island's somnolent ways and 25 kph. speed limit?
Neither, as it happened. Turning round I was met by the beady yellow eyes and malevolent caw of a currawong, a raven-sized bird with the black and white markings of a magpie. continue...
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