by Mat Churchill

Unless you're into birdwatching, reading the credits of your favourite T.V. show, or are in need of some serious motivation, you may not have heard the name Sean Dooley.

There's every chance you've seen his work, but where to start? Sean is a comedy writer, author, motivational speaker and record breaking bird watcher and is in Port Douglas with his family to get away from Melbourne's arctic winter.

Sean has written the gags for T.V. classics such as Full Frontal, Hamish and Andy, The AFL Footy Show, Rove, and Comedy Inc. (I'm sure there's someone out there that thought Comedy Inc. was a classic).

For the last couple of years he's worked on the ABC's Spicks and Specks which is fast becoming an institution in Australian T.V.

So what is it about the show that makes it so popular?

"Everyone loves music and the show isn't snobby. We cover styles from classical to punk," Sean said.

"The real secret is the three main people involved (host Adam Hills and team captains Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough). They are just genuine people and genuinely funny people."

But it's birdwatching that has been his passion since the age of ten.

"When I was a kid at school in Seaford Primary School my teacher used to give each student a set of binoculars and we'd spend the class at Seaford swamp watching birds instead of learning English."

It didn't seem to do his writing skills any harm.

In 2002 Sean released his first book 'The big twitch' which was an account of his world record breaking year of birdwatching in which he identified 703 species of birds around Australia.

"Breaking the 700 mark was like running a three minute mile," he said. "The previous record was held by a Pom so I got the birdwatching ashes back to Australia.

"I thought spending a year watching bird (in which he travelled a total of150,000 kilometres) would be like aversion therapy. Like getting caught smoking by your parents and them making you smoke the whole pack."

It didn't work, Sean is now one of Australia's preeminent birdwatching experts and is editor of 'Wingspan', Australia's leading magazine on birding.

Sean's second book entitled 'Cooking with Baz' is not about birds, but about the impact of his parents' cancer on his family.

"Mum got cancer so Dad taught himself to be a MasterChef to he could help her get her appetite back. When she died and he got sick I did the same for him."

The book is Sean's personal story of how his parent's illnesses brought his family together, and how food plays a big roll (deliberate typo) in the family dynamic.

So if Sean could be any type of bird what would he be?

"Something from the far north with a rich tropical lifestyle. This is a pretty nice spot."