The magnificent world of Tasmania’s birds is portrayed in a new book by noted birdwatcher and photographer Els Wakefield but this is not just a work featuring exotic and rare species.
Els with her photography and insights give equal weight to those species that are familiar and common. The silver gulls that frequent the fish punts on the Hobart quayside is a case in point.
Els reveals she and her late husband, Bill Wakefield, had a role in determining the lengthy life histories of these beautiful birds, and the fact that the oldest recorded individual had a full and much-travelled existence of at least 32 years after being banded in Tasmania in 1988.
Bill Wakefield made a major contribution to the study of not only gulls but many other species and Els’ book, A life with the birds of Tasmania, also serves as a tribute to the pioneering work the local medical doctor undertook in the name of bird conservation before his death in 2011.
The book covers the whole scope of the couple’s birding adventures to far-flung Australian locations and all the birds they saw and photographed, some of them rare visitors only seen on a handful of occasions.
The laughing gull of North America is among them, a bird familiar to me when I lived in the New York. Bill and Els saw the gull in Cairns. It was one of only 10 Australian records for the vagrant species.
I focus on gulls among the several hundred birds featured in this comprehensive work simply because their study in close association with the human environment opens the way to the discovery of the secrets of other species.
The long-living silver gull was initially ringed by Bill on Spectacle Island in Frederick Henry Bay before being found entangled in fishing line in Queensland – 1789 kilometres distant nearly 32 years later.
The number on the band was noted and sent to the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme in Canberra for identification. Els was contacted as the holder of the now deceased Bill’s record and she was able to thank the rescuers who were the twins that work at the Pelican Rescue Centre at Caloundra.
Still on gulls, Els goes on to detail the work she and Bill did to contribute to a study by Dr Heidi Auman on urban silver gulls, comparing their health with those resident on the Furneaux Islands in Bass Strait. Dr Auman found the Hobart gulls to be heavier with unhealthy levels of cholesterol and glucose in their blood from their fast-food human diet.
Gulls, of course, only cover a small portion of this epic publication, which was launched by wildlife campaigner Bob Brown in June.
Shots of waders amid rock pools and wrack are especially magical, conjuring the many happy days Els and Bill spent on the seashore along with other locations.
A life with the birds of Tasmania, by Els Wakefield. Forty South Publishing