Spotless Crake
(Porzana tabuensis). Again I'm posting a fairly crap photo of a bird but this guy has eluded me for many years. I first "spotted" him briefly at Campbells Swamp near Griffith NSW, and attempted to get pics of him on many occasions but he always stayed hidden in the Cumbungi, I managed to get fleeting glimpses of him from the boardwalk but never got a whole bird photo. So we are visiting Cape Leeuwin and after seeing the lighthouse, we go around to look at the water wheel a few hundred metres from the lighthouse. (An old wheel that used to supply water to the lighthouse back in the day, now completely calcified up from the water seeping from the limestone). No point getting the camera out of the car as we're looking at a water wheel, not birds, for a change. You guessed it, this guy is busily bathing himself in the water trough, in full sunlight. A dash back to the car and I return with camera in hand and he's in full shadow. A bit of work in Photoshop and at least you can see what it is. Photographed at the water wheel, Cape Leeuwin, near Augusta WA.
