That is unexpected for Australia. I never knew you had a feral ostrich population, but it seems these guys are extremely rare or not? Was this one easy to locate?
The amount of invasive species in Australia is absolutely ridiculous, so it really barely surprises me that there's ostriches too. I mean, camels, goats and rabbits are fairly well-known, but also Tahrs, Water buffaloes, boars and nearly every type of deer
@lintworm: There are one or two small populations of ostrich in Australia. This population is the most widely known (although most birders I've spoken to don't even know about it). This is the only one I saw, and that was on my second visit to the area, so not easy to locate but admittedly it stood out like a sore thumb amongst the canola.
@Mr Gharial : Tahr are not found in Australia, but they are in New Zealand, and we only have six species of deer (not "nearly every type" as there are around 35-40 species). And the ostriches here are not considered invasive. And I said above, most people - even birders - don't even know there are feral populations. Interesting though that while we're talking about birds, you only listed mammals in your list of invasives.
Admittedly, my list of invasives came from a quick iNaturalist search under mammals, as Australian birds would be too many to scroll through. I seem to have caught NZ in the search map as well. And though Ostriches are definitely birds, they're introduced in the same sense as most mammals. Unlike birds who were released as pets or stem from a vagrant population.
Indeed not "nearly every type" of deer, but Australia still has more deer introduced than Europe has native deer
