Archives for March 2023

An eastern rosella sang from a high perch atop a rope ladder in Legacy Park on the Queens Domain. The children’s park was established a few years back as a nature-based play space and the singing rosella was a powerful affirmation of what the Hobart Council had achieved with its design. Children and their exposure to nature had been very much part of my focus this year after I read about the “playground revolution” that the Age newspaper in Melbourne said was sweeping the … [Read more...] about Children in nature’s wonderland

The tide is turning for endangered albatrosses in their fight for survival on the high seas. Birdlife International reports that the loss of millions of these magnificent seabirds in longline fishing grounds is being checked by the increasing use of bird-friendly fishing techniques. It is a dramatic turn-around from a situation which once saw one albatross being killed every five minutes as bycatch in trawler operations. The longline fishing industry and governments … [Read more...] about Tide turns for threatened albatrosses

I travelled north on a birding excursion last month and was immediately confronted by the great north-south divide. This had nothing to do with prejudice real or imagined against southerners or where a proposed Tassie footy team should be based, in Hobart or Launceston. Instead of a divide, this was more of a debate about whether the yellow-throated honeyeaters in the north sing a different song to those in the south. Listening to a chortling, chuckling yellowthroat at the … [Read more...] about Yellowthroats highlight the north-south divide

In the far distancer across the mudflats and saltmarsh of Orielton Lagoon the distinctive shapes of 12 eastern curlew emerged through the heat haze. The birds were resting at high tide. A few years back it would have been no big deal to see curlew in the lagoon and the wider Sorell coastal area. After all, the curlews had been so common they were once shot for the pot, particularly during the hard years of the depression in the 1920s and 1930s. These days, however, the … [Read more...] about A welcome sight emerges from the heat haze