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I present to you: the largest dragonfly in the world, featuring my face for size comparison! :P Photos simply don't convey its sheer size and bulk but hopefully having something for comparison helps.

Anyway, story time! This guy was flying around erratically for at least an hour and a half since we arrived - I assume due to the missing wing half. I hadn't seen it myself but a couple of my friends had, and it somehow hit me in the side of the head and quickly flew off. :P
Anyway, while we were all chilling around the river, it decided to fly straight into the waterfall (in the background in pic 3) and was promptly swept downstream. What else could I do?? I jumped in and chased after it! 😂
As you can tell from the photos, my swim was successful, and I ended up with the most enormous dragonfly I have ever seen right before me. :P I can't even properly describe how enormously huge it was. And those amazing cerci! I gave it some time to dry off, but being humid tropical Queensland, it wasn't happening very quickly. It was more than happy to sit on my hand and so I wondered if it would prefer somewhere a bit higher and drier :P
So that is how it ended up on my face! As it dried and we were plagued by march flies, the obvious solution was to give him one to eat. He accepted it gratefully and somehow ate the entire thing in a single bite. Hopefully that goes a way into showing just how huge and formidable these guys are! Not content, he then sliced his huge mandibles into my nose -_- and had to be gently prized off. He slowly lapped up blood for a while after but luckily didn't do any more biting! If I squint in the mirror I can still see a faint line there now :P
He sat for about an hour before we had to leave and I left him on a shrub. I hope he was okay with half a wing missing, but there wasn't much else I could do. All in all one of the best experiences of my life! :D

First photo is by Haley Harding because I am incapable of taking selfies :P

First iNaturalist record.

With Graham Armstrong, Pete Ellis, Steve Guy, Guy Langan, Paul Harvey, Phil Heath, Ian Lewis.

Seen for more than an hour after dawn, in a small loose group of Eur. Curlews, feeding in a short-grass field on the south side of the main lake. This was "limpy" - the bird that had been shot about 3 weeks earlier, but seemed to make a recovery.

This location is the last known wintering site for this species. The last record from here was in February 1995.

Here is a link to the last video taken at this site, in January 1995:

http://www.hbw.com/ibc/video/slender-billed-curlew-numenius-tenuirostris/bird-foraging-short-grass

A male petrolling creek in the morning, hovering for 2-8 sec. in a location, moving slightly and hovering again. Doing it for many minutes but occasionally perching on stone out in the creek.

A female also came to the area, laying eggs.

January 2020.
Creek crossing H-Track, Paluma, Queensland, Australia.