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 Sunday Tasmanian.
By Don Knowler
Around midnight, preparing to go to bed after a night of sport on the television, a weird and wonderful sound drifted through the open windows from the garden. A soft, deep, continuous, ooo-ooo-ooo rhythm. I knew what it was immediately. A tawny frogmouth, although it was the first time I had … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Aboriginal peoples at opposite ends of the globe have teamed up to plot the epic journey of a feathered adventurer, the short-tailed shearwater or muttonbird. First nations rangers in Western Australia are joining with their native-title counterparts in Alaska on a ground-breaking project after … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Birds are said to act as the “canary in the coalmine’’ to warn of threats to the environment from hunting, land clearance and pollution. The same notion is now being applied to the impact of war. With the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the worst fears of bird-lovers have been realised. Along with … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
A pair of wood ducks catching the last rays of a dying winter sun had the shock of their lives when a duck-billed platypus leapt from the water in the Cascade Gardens and joined them. The ducks were resting on the flat concrete sluice which carries the Hobart Rivulet to the boulder trap catching … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
In the skies, the skylarks rise Above the sounds of war. Since that day, I knew they’d stay with me for ever more. Paul McCartney reveals with his latest album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, that he has had a lifetime interest in birds. In fact, it is not commonly known that the former Beatle could … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The truth has been revealed about Donald Duck. The familiar, lovable “quack” does not belong to Donald at all. It belongs to the female of the species. It appears that in the haste to describe and record birdsong in the past, virtually all songs and calls have been ascribed to males. A new book … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
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