‘I’ve got the best job in the world’: waterbird expert wins prestigious Eureka prize

UNSW Prof Richard Kingsford during the annual waterbird survey that flies about 38,000km – almost the equivalent of a full circumnavigation of the globe. Photograph: John Porter, NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

“When it’s perfect flying weather and it’s still, I have to pinch myself,” says Prof Richard Kingsford. “I’ve got the best job in the world.”

At the start of October for almost 40 years, Kingsford has climbed into a small plane to lead one of the world’s biggest and longest-running wildlife surveys, scanning and recording waterbirds across almost a third of the Australian continent.