Mayor Anna Reynolds promoted Hobart as a bird-watching hotspot last month posing the question – in what other Australian city could you see a magnificent wedge-tailed eagle flying across the sky?
Launching a guide to the city’s bird walks, Cr Reynolds had her sights on the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington but a few days later the eagles sprang a surprise a little closer to home, turning up at the Mt Nelson signal station.
Meeting a birding friend for coffee and cake at the restaurant there, I couldn’t believe my eyes when two “wedgies” arrived, riding the thermals of hot air rising from the Derwent far down below.
I wasn’t the only one to notice the eagles. Patrons left their tables to get a better look at the spectacular display which went on for more than half an hour.
I thought they might be white-bellied sea eagles at first, not an uncommon sight from the vantage point across the Derwent Estuary to the far-flung coast of the Tasmanian Peninsula. But the wedge-shaped tail of the first eagle to appear soon became apparent.
Then I saw the second eagle, this one below my sight line, the bird swinging in wide circles above both Lower Sandy Bay and the Trugannini Reserve in Taroona. Another sighting for the Mt Nelson Restaurant checklist, which now numbers 32 birds.
As the mayor mentioned in her speech promoting the guide – produced in association with Birdlife Tasmania – Hobart and the wider Tasmania is indeed a mecca for birdwatchers with many birders travelling here from interstate and further afield.
Tasmania has 12 species found nowhere else on earth, 11 to be seen within the Hobart municipality. To put that figure in perspective, it has to be compared with two bigger Australian states, Victoria and New South Wales. Victoria has no endemic species and NSW has only one, the rock warbler found in sandstone terrain in the Sydney region.
The bird guide lists 10 walks taking in mountain, forest and seashore. The features and grades of the tracks, along with birds to be seen, are set out in colourful detail. The guide also has a checklist with boxes alongside the bird names which, for visitors especially, can make it a valuable record and souvenir for a birding odyssey to the Apple Isle.
All my favourite birds and walks are listed and it is good to know that if I miss out on pink robins at the Waterworks Reserve in the morning I can find them at the Fern Glade Track in the afternoon.
Another favourite spot is Cornelian Bay, where a birding experience can be enhanced by a slice of orange sponge-cake at the Boathouse cafe. And that’s not forgetting, of course, the lemonade scones at Mt Nelson, a delight made even more special when the eagles arrive.