Tradie stunned by bizarre animal discovery along remote Aussie road
Ollie Fenwick-Ross, originally from New Zealand, was travelling along a remote Central Queensland road near Moranbah last week after work when something in a field of cows caught his attention.
"I'd driven past this field of cows, and I glanced over and thought, that one looks a bit weird. I kept driving, and then, the next day, the one that looked a bit weird was still there," he told Yahoo.
"I thought I must have been out at work for too long. Am I hallucinating? Maybe it's a tree stump."
The following day, it was still there. However this time Ollie wasn't alone in the car. He pointed out the "weird cow" to his companion, and they pulled over, eager to get a closer look.
"I couldn't tell which part was the head. I thought I had it, then its tail popped up," Ollie recalled. "It tripped me out again."
Although they were about 100 metres away, his mate was able to identify what it was — a bustard.
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One of Australia's largest ground-dwelling birds
Bustards are a native Australian animal and are one of the largest ground-dwelling birds in the country. They are found on dry plains and, despite once being widespread across the mainland, they are becoming increasingly rare in the south, according to BirdLife Australia.
There are estimated to be under 100,000 of the birds left in the wild.
During the mating season, males inflate a large sac in their throat to produce a loud, guttural noise and strut around with their tails cocked high to attract female attention. Only one large egg is produced and takes 24 days for the female to incubate.
This behaviour was on display when Ollie passed the bird last week, and he had convinced himself that it couldn't be "an animal on earth" so had discredited it as one.
"I hadn't seen anything blow up like that. It was like a Pokémon," he said.
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