Don Knowler

The tawny frogmouth may not have featured on Tasmanian’s list of favourite birds when I published it during the summer but my phone and email ran hot when I wrote later that I had spent 13 years searching for this elusive and mysterious species at my local reserve. There were sightings aplenty in other areas of Hobart and one proved too irresistible to ignore. I was told by a reader of a family in easy view close to a viewing platform at the Knocklofty Reserve high above … [Read more...] about Birdwatching days never wasted

Sitting in the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, an Olde English pub in Melbourne, on a hot summer’s afternoon I thought for a moment I had sunk too many pints of Tetley’s Yorkshire bitter. Perched on the back of the chair alongside me was a cockney sparrow, chirping merrily before swooping to snap up a few crusts of pastry that had spilled from my steak and kidney pie. As I have discovered at McDonald’s on Swanston St, the sparrows have learned that there are rich pickings to had … [Read more...] about Cockney sparrow a barrel of laughs

I VENTURED into the secret world of the forty-spotted pardalote one fine morning, a harsh environment that confirms the tiny bird’s status as a Tasmanian battler. I had sponsored a nestbox as part of a pardalote conservation program but my trip to NorthBrunyIsland to monitor the pardalote “shack” did not prepare me for the uncompromising existence of these beautiful but endangered birds. Battles for nesting sites, plagued by parasites, a constant life and death struggle … [Read more...] about It’s a tough life for a tiny pardalote

A FAMILY of kelp gulls has solved the problem of finding the ideal home for themselves and their offspring. Forget the first-home buyer’s grant, they have merely taken to the life of stowaways aboard a small boat plying the d'Entrecasteaux Channel off Margate. The fishing boat owners had got used to the kelp gulls roosting on their craft for a number of years, but were staggered one day last year to find that the gulls had built a nest on the upper deck, a large structure … [Read more...] about Boat owners all at sea over gulls

“We all have a story to tell about birds”. That’s the mantra of this column but I was determined to return from a week spent at the Australian Open Tennis Championships without one. A wedge-tailed eagle called Zorro changed all that. For once, I left my binoculars behind and was determined to concentrate on tennis. What’s more, I was among non-birding tennis-tragic friends and was well aware they found my talk of birds a little tiresome at times, especially at a sporting … [Read more...] about Zorro the eagle plays ball at the tennis