With the Americans in tow, we have driven all over Victoria in the past few days – up into slush country at Stanley and along the top of the northern lowland slopes west to Bendigo. Maybe we were too busy talking about the bleak weather, but you could count the birds we have seen on a couple of hands – a White Winged Chough or 5, a couple of Kookaburras and a small magpie lark that careened off the windscreen on the Midland. As I left for work this morning, an Eastern Spinebill flitted amongst the foliage of one of the only non-native shrubs on my property. I have dreamed of this event for years and when I saw that flash of buff and the twisted curve of a beak, it was my natural high of this week.