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
Far off-shore a gannet wheeled in the sky across the Derwent Estuary. It paused as if frozen in mid-air and then plunged into the water, sending up a huge spray of water. It emerged with what looked like silvery fish before the seabird was beating the air again with huge black-tipped white wings. I … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Like customers in an up-market beds and bedding store, forty-spotted pardalotes have been presented with a range of home comforts to make life a little more comfortable. The forty-spot initiative is not just about the supply of soft bedding, though. The bedding contains a pesticide which is ridding … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
High up in a crack willow a white goshawk tore at a mouse it had just snatched from a chicken coop, making the most of its meal. It was the first white goshawk I had seen all year in the Waterworks Valley where I live and the sighting should have been a cause for celebration. Instead, I was filled … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
To employ a totally over-used pun when it comes to bird-watching, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by joining the great swift parrot hunt on the mainland this autumn. I had missed out on seeing swift parrots in Tasmania – the only place they nest – last breeding season and so I thought … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The ornate room in City Hall seemed a long way from the bucolic beauty of the Waterworks Valley. And the speech I was about to deliver to a meeting of the City of Hobart’s planning committee was a long way from the arcane language of development matters. Instead of discussing discretionary uses, … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Birdwatchers use a term with ANZAC roots – Jizz – to identify birds that at first sight may look similar. The acronym is actually GISS (General Impression of Shape and Size) and this was a vital aid in helping the Diggers and Australian air and naval crews distinguish between Japanese planes and … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
© Donald Knowler 2018. All rights reserved.