Archives for September 2025

They say familiarity breeds contempt and each spring I certainly feel a little antagonistic towards the masked lapwings which prove a nuisance on my walks. It’s a familiar story. We all know in the suburbs and outer suburbs what it is like to be buzzed by the lapwings, commonly called plovers in Tasmania. In fact the birds, despite having yellow spurs on their wings, are incapable of causing injury, it just appears that way when they swoop with noisy menace if people stray … [Read more...] about Lapwings ruffle feathers in spring

I was hoping to make an important announcement at the Waterworks community’s annual lantern parade which each year marks the end of winter. “The fan-tailed cuckoos are back,” I was hoping to shout to cheers as I sipped a mug of mulled wine. It was not to be. Usually the fan-tailed cuckoos, my harbinger of spring, turn up towards the end of August but this year they let me down although another early migratory species, the striated pardalote, had already arrived in good … [Read more...] about Migrants delay their celebration of spring