Last week I’d just started a long trip home from Borroloola in the NT’s Gulf Country back home to Darwin.

As I crossed Caranbirini Creek – 50 or so kilometres from Borroloola – I noticed what at first I thought to be a bundle of brightly coloured clothes abandoned or perhaps blown from the back of a passing vehicle.

On closer examination those bright colours came not from some cast-off clothes but from the freshly road-killed body of one of my favourite birds, the Jabiru, more properly known as the Black-necked Stork, Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus.

There is not much more that I can say about this needless death nor can I find a way to express in words my sadness and anger at the loss of this most beautiful bird.

Let this picture be my witness and testament.