On the last day of summer two weeks ago, I found the woods and forests strangely silent.
Although the approach of winter usually comes slowly in our valley, some beautiful warm and sunny days making a mockery of the seasons, this year summer appeared to slip from my grasp, as if overnight.
I had given my usual bird-watching spot, the Waterworks Reserve, a miss for a week while each day I walked along the foreshore of Sandy Bay and Taroona, following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin.
On my last trip to the Waterworks in the third week of February, the summer migrant birds had still been in full song. That changed dramatically during my next stroll on my return, to touch base again with all the birds that had kept me entranced with their joyful songs during the summer months. They had departed already.
What was strange, however, was all the resident species also appeared to be mute, as if exhausted after all the rigour of the summer mating season when families have to be raised in a short space of time and, at the same time, territories defended.
I felt bereft and lonely as I took a time-out from my stroll, sitting on a seat fashioned from a fallen tree at the south end of the reserve.
The world of the bird-lover, however, is always full of surprises and as I lamented the end of the season of summer song, an unfamiliar tune rang out from just above my head.
Although I have lived in Tasmania for more than 20 years, and seen all our 12 endemic species many times, there was one song that had often escaped my ears – that of the strong-billed honeyeater.
The call I heard was markedly different the piping notes of a more common family member, the black-headed honeyeater. As I looked up into a silver wattle towering over me, I could see a party of strong-bills happily prising open the bark of the tree’s upper branches in a search for burrowing grubs. There could be no mistaking the strong-bills. Sparrow-sized, they are slightly larger than the black-headed honeyeaters, and have a striking head pattern that incorporates a wide white stripe running around the back of their black-capped heads. The undersides are silver and their backs a beautiful moss green.
It was especially important to see them, because the strong-bills are listed as threatened because of forest clearance.
It’s impossible to describe birdsong in words, but the strong-bills make a pleasant, excited cheep which is often lost to the cacophony of sound heard in the forests in summer.
I might be headed for a muted, if not totally silent winter but at least the strong-bill’s song will keep me entertained until summer visitors like the satin flycatcher, black-faced cuckoo-shrike and dusky woodswallow return.