My involvement started on the 2nd of October 2022. Having spent a lot of time over the past few years filming at the Mt Coot-tha Botanic gardens, I was hoping to find something a bit closer to home. And luck would have it that one night when passing by the park, I heard the unmistakable call of a Bush Stone-Curlew. I returned the next day and confirmed that not only were two Bush Stone-Curlews living at the park, but that they already were in the process of incubating two eggs.

Bush Stone-Curlews incubate for roughly 24 days, give or take. As I had no idea how long they had already been incubating for, I would drop by the park each day in the morning and afternoon.

Fortune would have it that I happened to check in at the park shortly after the first egg had hatched, and just in time to capture the second egg hatching.

Sadly some time on the third day post-hatching, one of the chicks disappeared. My suspicion is that it was preyed upon by a bird, with a crow being a likely candidate. When I arrived in the late afternoon and discovered that the chick was missing, I witnessed one of the parents angrily flying after and chasing away a crow.

Crows, Kookaburras, and Pied Butcherbirds spend a fair bit of time hanging around near the apartment building next to the park, as they are often fed there.

The disappearance of the chick was sad no doubt, but in 2021 I had filmed a family whose chicks disappeared on the 10th day, so I was no stranger to this mostly natural misfortune. So when I arrived on the morning of the 9th day, and could not find the family anywhere, I was saddened but ready to accept that the story had come to a short and sad ending.

As I was preparing to pack up and return home, I suddenly managed to spot the father. I kept an eye on and filmed him for a bit, when suddenly he flew across the road. Aha! That is the day I learned that this family lives on both sides of the park. But it would take me quite a few more weeks until I learned just how often they crossed the road.

You see initially I assumed they must just cross on rare occasion late at night, when there's very little traffic. But on the 20th of November, when I filmed them in the morning, they were on the apartment side of the park, and yet when I returned in the late evening, I now found them on the hospital side. I was completely surprised as it meant they had crossed sometime between 12 noon and 5:30pm.

The next day I decided to hang back in the late evening, and sure enough, to my surprise and terror, I witnessed them cross the road around 5:30pm. Oh boy!

That is the moment when the family transformed from one of many Bush Stone-Curlews out there, to a very special case, a family living in a busy urban environment, and living with a constant risk of everything ending in tragedy.

My first action was to reach out to my local city councillor, and request council to install wildlife crossing signs. Sure the family had survived up until now, but I knew that it was only a matter of time until misfortune collided with them.

Unfortunately Brisbane City Council was not willing to help. You can read their response here.

A few nights I went out with some make-shift signs of my own to try and warn passing motorists about the birds crossing. Unfortunately the signs weren't too rigid, and transporting them each evening was quite a lot of effort for myself. I was feeling quite burnt out, from the lack of assistance from the council, from cynical and condescending comments online when I sought advice on what I could do to help.

I had to resign myself to not being able to help the family, and leaving their fate in the hands of destiny.

Fortunately though Junior grew up and moved out, and the mother and father seemed to settle back into their quieter lifestyle.

At the end of pretty much each breeding season, I've always told myself that would be the last one I'd spend filming. It's very time consuming, it's quite draining, all the footage requires storage, which costs money, time spent filming is time not working, and then there's a lot of time required afterwards to even review the footage and do anything with it.

And really, what is the point? It's certainly not for the sake of online likes and "popularity". Without going into too much detail, essentially filming has been a form of creative procrastination. Time spent filming can help one feel productive and focused. But afterwards one can't help but feel a bit guilty. Time is such a limited resource, is this really the best way to spend it?

But as the 2023 breeding season began to draw closer, I felt compelled to return to the park once more, and see what would be different this time around.

This year I decided to be a bit more proactive about the dangers of the road. I designed and printed off some signs to stick up along the road, letting people know about the fact that Bush Stone-Curlews will typically cross the road at night.

Yes these signs wouldn't be able to guarantee complete safety, and there'd no doubt be quite a few people who wouldn't notice or get a chance to read them, but I figured the vast majority of people commuting along this road probably did so regularly. So it was only a matter of time until they'd be stopped at the traffic light, with a good chance to read the sign, and take it all into account next time they were travelling along the road. This applies to not just motorists, but cyclists and scootists too.

And there'd be another added benefit, which is giving a bit of context to why people might see some random dude with cameras standing in the middle of the road at night gesturing at them to slow down.

As well as sticking the signs up, I figured I'd need some extra props to help me out in the moment. Equipped with a high visibility vest, and flashing orange safety lights, I was in a much better position to help reduce the risk of tragedy unfolding.

So on the 25th of September, Coco & Pearl hatched.

And months later they had both grown up and moved out to find their own home.

There were a few difficulties faced by them, beyond the challenges of crossing the road, but I'll save details of that for a later story.

With Coco & Pearl having safely grown up and moved out, it seemed that thankfully everything was wrapped up and ending with a happy conclusion, for that season at least. I was looking forward to taking a long break from filming at the park.

But it would seem that the parents weren't quite done for the season. They had laid two eggs and begun the process of incubation once more.

However, 24 days later, as the eggs hatched and the hatchlings emerged, tragedy befell the family as an opportunistic bird seized the opportunity to snatch both hatchlings away when the parents were preoccupied removing.

At the same time that the hatchlings were being preyed upon, a group of passerbys had noticed me and the birds and taken a great interest and began marching over for a closer look. This was really poor timing due to the events that were taking place, and would stress out the parents even further, so I had to sternly gesture at the group to keep their distance. Fortunately they complied...

With the way things had turned out, and the issue of curious strangers, I decided it'd be for the best to take the last of the road signs down, returning some degree of anonymity to the parents, and letting the park return to its prior state.

Well, it turned out the parents still hadn't wrapped up for the season. A month or so after the hatching tragedy, they were once more incubating. And fortunately three weeks later, on the 6th of March, Moss & Mist hatched and avoided predation.

A few weeks post-hatching, the family had made their first crossing to the other side of the park.

However due to great alarm and distress caused by close proximity of a large off-the-leash dog, the family fled back across to their typical side of the park. This revealed that it wasn't just night-time that the family was at risk of crossing the road.

One morning when I arrived I discovered the family once more on the hospital side. I made a brief return home to gather a few wet weather supplies and when I returned to the park I discovered that the family was now split in half, Mum & Mist had managed to cross back to their preferred side, whilst Dad & Moss remained on the hospital side.

No doubt something had happened to the family when attempting to cross the road, but fortunately none of the family members had sustained any injuries.

Concerned that Dad & Moss might attempt to cross back over in the pouring rain, I stuck around at the park for the rest of the day, keeping a close eye on them.

Fortunately that night Mum & Mist managed to safely cross the road on their own, and reunite with Dad & Moss.

Despite these difficulties, the family seemed to be doing well, both chicks were growing stronger by the day, and it seemed that like Coco & Pearl before, there would once more be a nice happy ending.

One month post-hatching, the family spent their last peaceful day together as a whole family.

The following day, the 7th of April, I arrived at the park and much to my dismay I discovered that Dad was severely injured.

His leg was clearly fractured, it was covered in blood, and was swarming with ants.

There's a fair bit of detail that I can share about what happened on this day, and I might wrote a post about it on this website in the future, but for now, know that I consulted with and received help from experienced people on the day, a lot of thought and consideration was put into each decision made.

The gist of what happened that day was that with the assistance of somebody who had prior experience with helping capture and take in injured Bush Stone-Curlews, we managed to contain dad, quite peacefully, and take him to the RSPCA. The RSPCA evaluated dad's injuries, and due to a significant compound fracture that he had sustained, it was not feasible that he would ever be able to recover and be released into the wild.

As a result he was euthanized.

Although this result was incredibly upsetting, I hold no regrets over what took place on the day, and I believe that euthanization was the kindest result for him.

It's easy to focus on the final decision made, and feel unhappy about it, but the tragedy took place when he was hit, not when he was put to sleep. The care he received isn't to blame for his death, he died because somebody hit him, whether that was with their car, motorbike, bicycle, or scooter.

Within a few days of dad's passing, a male newcomer had arrived at the park. Initially mum was quite irate with him, but over the coming days he managed to ease his presence at the park, and within less than a week, he was living alongside Mum, Moss & Mist.

Although Whisper most certainly did not adopt any step-father like position - and he did cause a bit of nuisance for Moss & Mist - his presence was not too detrimental to their upbringing.

It was quite fortunate that Moss & Mist were one month old when they lost their father. If they had been younger, say only one or two weeks old, I'm not sure if Mum would have been able to keep them safe on her own.

Nonetheless it's a credit to her that she spent over a month and half, solo parenting them both, feeding them, teaching them, helping them grow.

Mist was the first to move out, 75 days post-hatching. And Moss followed suit 2 days later.

It's now been almost half a year since Whisper first moved in. He and Mum seem like any other Bush Stone-Curlew couple. Keeping each other company. No drama.

Soon they will be parents, Whisper potentially as a first-time father. It will be quite interesting to see how he fares.