Archives for February 2016

Heads down, the jersey cattle feeding in a paddock were oblivious to the life and death struggle taking place about them. A purple storm cloud gathered on the near horizon and I had decided to return to my car from the fields in the Huon Valley, where I had been out searching for a plover of open countryside, the banded lapwing. It was the sort of dark and foreboding cloud that foretold lightning and I didn’t want to be caught out in the open. So I hurried among the … [Read more...] about Life and death in the paddock

On slender wings, a shy albatross rode the crests of waves one stormy day in the Derwent. I had been told many years ago that it was possible to see albatrosses in zig-zag flight on the bay but I hardly believed it. On journeys on roads fronting the Derwent I always instead kept my eyes peeled for another wonder of the natural world, the peregrine falcon, which uses the Derwent, or more precisely the air above it, as its playground. This day, as usual, I had one eye on the … [Read more...] about Albatrosity on the high seas

Something lost, something found. Australia Day always engenders mixed feelings and emotions. I am glad to celebrate as a new Australian but at the same time I lament all that has been lost to my adopted country since my English countrymen first set foot on the continent. I spent Australia Day on January 26 at the Sandy Bay regatta, munching Aussie lamb burgers and drinking a little too much Tasmanian-brewed ale. All the while welcome swallows flew among the revellers on the … [Read more...] about Lament for lost species

It’s been the summer of the tawny frogmouth. Wherever I have gone these mysterious but elusive birds have appeared, often in the Hobart suburbs not too far from the central business district. And it has not just been me spotting the frogmouths. My email and post has bulged with frogmouth sightings in recent months, one pair deciding to nest in the gutter of a Hobart home. The young tawny, two wide-eyes blinking from a round ball of fluffy feathers as the sun rose each … [Read more...] about Tawny summer