Archives for November 2018

The anguished twittering of the New Holland honeyeater’s alarm call rang out over the Inala private reserve on Bruny Island as a goshawk swept in and landed on a tree stump The goshawk, a female mixing russet and grey in its plumage, looked about it menacingly but at this time there would be slim pickings. The roadkill put out for birds of prey had already been snapped up earlier in the day by the other visitors to the reserve, which included wedge-tailed and sea … [Read more...] about Raptor restaurant in the frame

To use the extensive lexicon of the fanatical birdwatchers, the twitchers, I “dipped out” on one of the rarest birds to be seen in Tasmania in recent years. To make matters worse, the rarity from Eurasia, the grey wagtail turned up at my local birdwatching spot, the Waterworks Reserve. I was told later that it was a “crippler”, another twitcher term for a bird of stunning beauty which hangs around to be observed and photographed. I’m far from a “dude” in these matters (a … [Read more...] about Dipping out on a crippler

There’s no sound in the Tasmanian bush as mystical and magical as the call of the boobook owl ringing out in the night. It’s onomatopoeic, of course, the “boo-book” giving the bird its common name. In New Zealand a closely-related species is called the morepork, which perhaps is the same sound but with a New Zealand accent. The call is a haunting, rhythmic two-note sound, which can carry for a kilometre on a still, summer night. It’s symbolic of the wilder Tasmanian bush but … [Read more...] about Boobook comes to call

The Friends of the Sandy Bay Rivulet are keeping their hopes alive of one day being able to walk the watercourse on a new trail linking city and mountain. Amid all the talk of development in Hobart, from high-rise buildings to cable cars, the organisation has been quietly advancing the case for the Sandy Bay Rivulet Linear Park hoping it has not slipped from the Hobart Council’s radar. At the Friends’ recent annual general meeting, however, members were assured the plan was … [Read more...] about Walk on the wildside