Spring was in the air as the sweet smell of newly mown grass and linseed oil drifted across the Tasmanian Cricket Association ground on the Domain. Grass cut, bats oiled, the players donning whites at the oval and, in another celebration of the end of winter, welcome swallows sweeping across the pristine turf still coated with early-morning dew. I was not patrolling the pitch and its surroundings to look at the returning swallows, however, and their close relatives, tree … [Read more...] about Birdsong and the crack of leather on willow
Archives for October 2019
Spring migration takes shape
The first piece of what I call the jigsaw of bird migration was put in place in the last weeks of August when I heard a fan-tailed cuckoo calling in the Waterworks Valley. Next day straited pardalotes arrived from the mainland. The swallow might be the traditional harbinger of spring but it is the fan-tailed cuckoos and pardalotes who arrive first, a little later this year on August 18 and 19. I suspect the cold snap that brought snow in late August and early September … [Read more...] about Spring migration takes shape
The ocean delivers its treasures
The little black cormorants were riding the surf. Strange to see them behaving in such a way. Usually they sit low on calm, open waters but on this spring morning they appeared a mirror image of the human surfers catching the waves all around them. Although at first I thought the cormorants were merely at play like the surfers at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, I soon realised there was method in their spring madness. As the waves swept towards them, the cormorants suddenly … [Read more...] about The ocean delivers its treasures
Imagine if our birds fell silent
Don Knowler returns home to the welcome sound of resident songbirds - and news of an avian crisis A GREEN rosella sung a tuneful melody on my return from the Sunshine Coast this month, where I had travelled to escape the tail-end of winter. Together with my feathered friends, some of my other neighbours were also in tune as I made the rounds of my street to thank members of the Neighbourhood Watch for keeping an eye on my house while I was away, and the neighbour over the … [Read more...] about Imagine if our birds fell silent
Miners put on a noisy show
A pair of noisy miners outside the Eastlands Shopping Centre were living up to their name. An unbelievably loud “pwee pwee pwee’’ resonated across the tables of the alfresco dining area of a restaurant there, making it impossible for me to hear what a relative I had met for coffee was saying. Each morning in summer and spring, I was told, the noisy miners woke him at dawn. Only this was not spring, it was barely into the last month of winter. The hint of spring carried on … [Read more...] about Miners put on a noisy show