An invitation to visit a boutique winery where wedge-tailed eagles are a regular feature was too good to turn down.
So on a fine late-winter morning, with a hot sun promising spring, I drove the meandering Lyell Highway though the upper Derwent Valley to reach Rylelands farm just past Rossgarten.
There to meet me was Derek Jones who a few days previously had phoned to say that he had just seen wedge-tailed eagles in a love dance above his farm, and then mating at the top of a dead gum on the banks of the Derwent which borders his property.
I say outright that the eagles – and the sight of the male spreading his wings over the female’s body, as Derek described it – never materialised but it was far from a wasted trip.
I knew it would be a day to remember the moment I pulled up outside the federation farmhouse and was led to Derek’s patio overlooking a wide sweep of the Derwent, the shallow waters rippling in mini-rapids.
It was not only eagles on my radar. Derek had a record of bird-sightings going back many years, started by the previous owner of the farm. There in blue fountain-pen ink were records of tawny frogmouths in winter and shining bronze-cuckoos arriving in spring. About 40 species in all.
The sightings at Ryelands might appear casual and insignificant, but such individual records are being used increasingly to monitor bird populations.
The “twitchers”, those birders who compile life lists of birds spotted as a personal record, are becoming citizen scientists. Birders are now entering their sightings on a Birdlife Australia database, often covering specific areas on a regular basis to complete an accurate picture of species on the increase, or decreasing.
And it is not just about birds. Monitoring birds can reveal other, less obvious pieces in nature’s complex jigsaw.
Ryelands is a case in point. At the foot of the bluff on which the farmhouse stands a family of Tasmanian devils go about their business, and in the rippling waters of the Derwent itself platypus are common, a kayaking operation that uses Ryelands as a base once reporting 16 on a single trip.
Down on the riverbank we looked for platypus and a black swan which has teamed up with a flock of feral geese. They are usually watched over by Derek’s Smithfield collie, Scruffy, which on this occasion led us along the borders of a paddock where his owner – who works as a graphic designer when not farming – grows heritage vegetables for Tasmania’s high-end restaurants.
After sniffing around the vegetable patch, Scruffy led us through the vineyard, the source of Derek’s pinot noir, and up to the farmhouse.
The day had started with the prospect of eagles on the horizon and now a fine pinot noir was in sight.