Spread out on the floor are a dozen A3 sized photographs of birds taken from bushland around Kurri, that will be presented at the next meeting of the Hunter Bird Observer Club.

The book shelves sag under the weight.

No, there’s no sign of John Grisham or Ken Follett or Tim Winton here, but 

reference books of birds – mostly Australian bird books, but sprinkled in among them are books on birds from New Zealand, South Africa, Indonesia, India and England.

Welcome to the East Maitland home of Jim Smart, retired science teacher and, as you’ve probably worked out already, bird lover.

The Mercury first learned of Smart when our wildlife photographer Jim Thomson mentioned his name as the man he goes to when he is unable to identify a bird whose picture he had taken. 

He takes the image to Smart who will invariably identify it for him.

“Oh, he’s a gun,” Thomson says in his broad Scottish brogue.

So we decided to pay Jim Smart a visit.

“It’s number 41,” Smart said.

“The house with the trees.”

Surprise, surprise.

The story of Jim Smart and birds stems from growing up as the son of a wheat farmer at Dubbo.

While his dad wasn’t especially knowledgeable about birds he was “kind to birds”.

From there it was a natural progression.

“Bird watching encapsulated all the things I like to do ... travelling, the outdoors, the environment and science,” he explains.

“In any one place birds are affected by food, animals, soil, climate, rocks. There’s so much science in it.”

I should point out that among those books on his shelves are small notebooks that list every bird he has seen in the past 24 years or so, and the number spotted.

I pick one up and flick through it. 

It’s from a trip to Cooper Creek which, I’m told, is near Innamincka in north-east South Australia.

There are 28 birds listed, some with ticks beside them, in a shorthand only a knowledgeable bird watcher could decipher.

“What is an M Parrott,?” I ask.

“Mulga,” he replies, matter of fact.

“P Duck?” I ask again.

“Pacific.”

You get the idea.

Smart is one of the hard core members of the Hunter Bird Observer Club which has 300 members ranging from Newcastle to as far north as Scone and Taree. 

Due probably in equal parts to the passion and dedication of the members, and the depth of their data – in other words, the input of sightings by members – they’re one of the state’s most highly respected bird group.

Smart, for instance, along with a handful of other members, has spent the past 11 years documenting the number and variety of birds that visit Walka Water Works each year.

“Did you know that Walka Water Works is one of the major drought refuges for birds of the western plains,” he said, barely able to mask his enthusiasm.

“How do birds in the central parts of the state know it’s there, then go back?

"However they do it, they’ve got far better broadband than we do.”

The information from the Hunter club is passed up the line to the NSW Bird Atlases and also Bird Life Australia to help with their documentation.

Have you got a favourite bird, I ask?

He points to the fairy wrens on the wall.

“I like them, they’re common but lovely birds. And the water colour of the princess parrot holds a special place too. It was painted by my auntie and it’s a very rare bird.”

To someone like Jim Smart, whose bird 

spotting expeditions have taken him to 4200 metres up the Himalayan mountains and the islands of Indonesia, that must have been a challenge he couldn’t refuse. 

So, has he ever seen one?

“Yes, one. Four hundred kilometres west of Alice Springs.” Just another day at the office.

The itch Smart has at the moment, one that he is clearly wrestling with, is to travel to Antarctica to see the birdlife there. 

“It’s a long way to go to get seasick, and it’s certainly expensive,” he says. “But the birds down there ... well, they would be great to see.”

Which seemed to lead to my final question: is there a holy grail for bird watchers?

“The night parrot,” he said immediately. “It wasn’t seen for the best part of 100 years and was thought extinct. But then one was spotted in a remote part of south-west Queensland. The person who saw it happened to get it on video, so there’s no mistake.”

A bird spotted once in  a hundred years – to a man like Jim Smart, that must sound mighty tempting.

The Hunter Bird Observer Group meets the second Wednesday of the month at Shortland Wetlands Centre.

Tell me a fact about local birds, I said as we walked out to the backyard to see if the rosellas have moved in to take advantage of the nesting boxes he has in the gum trees of his backyard.

“Well, the Hunter has always been home to the Australian raven, but just recently the Torresian crow has moved in and taken over," Smart said.

"They’re a more aggressive bird even though they’re about the same size, and they’ve essentially kicked the raven out.

“In the past the Torresian crow has always been located farther north. 

"That’s global warming in action, right there.”

Just then, sure enough, the rosellas came in.