Don Knowler

I scouted the wetlands and mudflats as part of Birdlife Tasmania’s summer wader count and my observations – or lack of them – confirmed alarming statistics that numbers of migratory shorebirds are in freefall not just in Tasmania but right across Australia’s coasts.  In fact I did not record one visitor from the northern hemisphere but I am happy to report that others were seen in the wetlands survey around Tasmania’s coasts. Not in the vast numbers seen in past years, … [Read more...] about Waders fail to show

I thought that the falcon wars were only being fought in the skies above Tasmania but I’ve learned that in Britain pigeon fanciers and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are locked in a battle of their own.  The wars centre on what I consider the greatest flying creature, the peregrine falcon, and its relentless hunt of prized racing pigeons. Although peregrine falcons are protected in Tasmania, and are considered to do more good than harm with their pursuit of … [Read more...] about Falcon wars blight our skies

The little red samurai appears menacing and sinister, and so he should. He floats in the oceans, riding the waves, coming and going with the tides. Like the bright plastic he is made from, he always seems to be in our sights, if only sometimes as a backdrop.  The plastic samurai in full ancient regalia appears not just as a metaphor for the poisoning and pollution of our oceans, but as a signature for a remarkable exhibition, Vanishing Point, currently showing at the … [Read more...] about Plastic menace rides the oceans

“Birds mean business.” A slogan like that sounds as though it comes from Madison Avenue, fresh from a script for Mad Men, one of my favourite television shows centred in the advertising world in the United States. The slogan was not penned, in fact, by a slick adman on the street of shame, but is being promoted by a group of New Yorkers whose natural habitat is situated as far away from the heart of the American advertising industry as you can get. “Birds mean business” … [Read more...] about Start spreading the word

Some wild weather in early autumn with stronger winds than usual brought me up close and personal with some of nature’s most incredible creations. I’m talking birds’ nests or more precisely caliology, the name given to their scientific study. It seemed that one afternoon when high winds were rocking the trees above me on the lower slopes of Mt Wellington it was raining nests. The large, bulky structure of a grey currawong’s nest landed at my feet on a mountain trail, I came … [Read more...] about Passing the nest test