Avid birdwatcher and amateur fossil hunter, Melissa Lawery, recently hit the jackpot by finding the earliest recorded Aussie fossil bird tracks on a beach along the south coast.

There turned out to be 27 tracks from different species, all had three widely-spaced toes ending in sharp claws, and some had a distinctive claw for perching.

Dating back some 120-128 million years ago, these have been verified as the oldest bird tracks in the Southern Hemisphere. To put this in perspective, at this time Australia was near the South Pole and part of Gondwana..

– More information here.