Although not particuarly striking in appearance, the Wattlebird, or as he called it the 'wattled bee-eater', attracted the excited attention of John White a surgeon on the First Fleet that arrived in Botany Bay in January 1788 before moving to Port Jackson a few weeks later to found the city of Sydney. He wrote on April 17 1788: 'this bird seems peculiar to New Holland and is undoubtedly a species which has not hitherto been described'. (Cited in The Birth of Sydney, Tim Flannery (intro & ed), Melbourne: The Text Publsihing Company, 1999.)