Dancing on the Edge of the World
Everyone has a story about birds. They are all about us and are our contact point with nature. The birds I see are usually in an urban environment and so I concentrate on these in my writing. I don’t pretend to be an expert but birds of the city and suburb are also the ones that most people identify with, the species you do not need a compass and binoculars to seek out. A scarlet robin singing in a garden is just as exciting as a swift parrot in an ancient forest and is worth just as many words in my On the Wing writings, which appear weekly in the Mercury newspaper’s Weekend magazine.
By Don Knowler
A giant stack of sticks on display in the Freycinet National Park demonstrates the time and energy that white-bellied sea eagles put into building the structure that forms their nests. The pile has another function – to encourage walkers not to fashion walking sticks from woody debris they find … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
A key birding initiative has been given a boost by the sighting of one of Australia’s rarest birds, the swift parrot, in Melbourne. The arrival of the swift parrot - travelling through Victoria on its return to breeding grounds in Tasmania - has helped spur the Aussie Backyard Bird Count, which … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
It’s that time of the year when the normally shy and retiring plovers try to throw their weight around. On open spaces they dive-bomb walkers, often coming out of nowhere to give everyone a scare, swooping so close that the rush of air from their wings can be felt on the head. Much myth surrounds … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
My birthday falls on an auspicious date – September 11th – and ever since the horror of the World Trade Centre attack, to mark my own milestone I have tended to take myself as far removed from the events of 2001 as I can. No TV, no newspapers, just the wild world and the refrain of birdsong in the … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
I awake at dawn to what sounds like a truck reversing. The “truck” is beeping an alarm designed to warn pedestrians it is moving backwards. Only this beeping seems to go on forever. It pulsates from dawn until the sun rises beyond the wattles and gums at the end of my garden, and then all morning … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The fan-tailed cuckoo left me hanging in suspense this winter when it failed to show as it always does, towards the end of August. Migrants arriving late, and sometimes not at all, always gives cause for concern at a time of declining bird numbers but I had no need to worry about this species of … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
© Donald Knowler 2018. All rights reserved.