The mukarrthippi grasswren may be Australia’s rarest bird and I am obsessed with it | Virginia Merange in #birdoftheyear

It's believed there are fewer than 20 of these little birds of the spinifex' - and their future hangs in the balance

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It's hard to say precisely when I became a card-carrying bird nerd. Perhaps it was when I began keeping a pair of binoculars in my bag (you know, just in case"). Maybe the time I taught bush kinder children the local bird calls so we could chat to our feathery friends out on country. Most likely, though, it was the point at which I became hopelessly obsessed with a little bird named mukarrthippi and its entanglement with my family history.

Mukarrthippi (pronounced mook-waa-tippy) captured my heart, not just because of its charismatic rufous-brown eyebrows, alert upturned tail and striking white streaked body, but also for the rather dubious honour it holds of potentially being Australia's rarest bird. A recent survey estimates that fewer than 20 individuals exist in the world, most of whom reside in a single small area of sandhill in what is now known as Yathong Nature Reserve.

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