I had dragged my family on another birding research trip in the guise of a family holiday, this time to Millowl/Philip Island. I needed to photograph shore birds and their habitat for my second children’s book The Beach Birds, but my main quest was to see an Eastern Curlew.

One morning my husband took our boys to look for crabs and I went on an adventure in search of the curlew. I walked for a couple of hours along the beautiful coastal path near Rhyll, but frustratingly didn’t see much. Nearphilli the end of the path, I bumped into a park ranger who suggested I tried walking out to a sandy split, pointing to it in the distance. He said it would be about a 45 min walk to get out to it. So off I set.

I walked along the beautiful deserted beach, past tiny scuttling red-Necked Stints and Red-capped Plovers. Past a pair of breeding Hooded Plovers, giving them plenty of space, which was a joy to see. I walked and walked feeling like I was on a solo intrepid adventure into the unknown.

Of course it wasn’t a 45min walk though. It took me 2 hours to get to the end point of the peninsula, but when I ran out of land there was a multitude of birds. Then, beyond the Gulls, Oyster Catchers and Terns, I saw three long legged, long beaked birds. I got a few slightly burry identifying photos. But were they Eastern Curlews or Whimbrels? I wasn’t sure.

I walked the long hot walk back with the tide creeping closer with each wave. Getting caught by the tide has been a fear of mine since it nearly happened in my childhood. But I made it back safe and dry and put the photos up on a Facebook ID group to ask “are these eastern curlews?!” The reply came back. Mission accomplished. I felt like a true adventurer that day!

I would absolutely love to see Puffins in Iceland.

Birders talk about their spark bird, but for me it was the bird I first remember drawing that got me hooked. I was 9 years old and I drew a puffin at school. I adored how they carry lots of fish at once in their colourful beaks and their little teardrop eyes. I won a prize for that drawing!

I’ve seen them through a telescope on cliffs in Ireland and that was amazing, but to see my 'spark bird' with the naked eye would definitely be a golden ticket.

They are my muses in all my work. When I first came to Australia, aged 27, I found drawing birds helped me learn to identify them.

It was also shortly after my arrival in my now adopted country that I first tried drypoint etching. It was quite an ‘ah ha!’ moment for me. This newly discovered (to me) printmaking technique enabled me to take my drawings further and because all my drawings at the time were of these strange and wonderful Australian birds that is what I made etchings of.

Now printmaking and birds always go hand in hand for me. There are so many birds in Australia I feel I have subject matter for the rest of my life!