A birder?s eye view of Kakadu: ?Don?t give up until you go to bed?

We keep our eyes peeled as we follow a narrow waterway lined with impenetrable groves of bamboo and flakey melaleucas that leave a sweetly medicinal perfume in the air. Inscrutable reptilian eyes watch us from the murky waterline and the chittering of crickets is punctuated by the deep hoot of a barking owl before Paterson suddenly cries out.

Travelling with birders - and Paterson in particular - is a lesson in landscapes, seasons and flora. Though every conversation carries the risk of abrupt termination by the call of a channel-billed cuckoo or the cascading chitter of a whistling kite.