In a fast-paced, fast-changing world there is something wonderfully reassuring about the predictability of birds and their place in the environment. ``All’s well with the world,” I always mutter to myself when I find the superb fairy-wren, the new holland honeyeater or green rosella where I expect them to be. With a little time on my hands at Lake Barrington in the north-west earlier this year I decided to take a stroll to an area of dry woodland on the lake’s shores where … [Read more...] about Looks aren’t everything
A little friend in need
The tiny marsupial blinked through pin-prick, shining eyes. I was blocking his path as he tried to scurry into the undergrowth on Mt Wellington. Sharing a track with a dusky antechinus half-way up the mountain, we had both been caught out by a sudden change in the weather that brought a blizzard swirling around the peaks to the south. I did not have a winter coat, or a hat but my problems paled into insignificance when I considered those of the antechinus. A brown falcon … [Read more...] about A little friend in need
In the footsteps of John Glover
Birds are our living link with the past and when I follow in the footsteps of the Victorian artist John Glover on a favourite track on Knocklofty above Hobart I think of the honeyeaters, the robins and flycatchers serenading him as he went on his way. The last time I walked the track the black-headed honeyeaters were in full voice – as they would have been in Glover’s time – and their piping calls rang through the canopy of wattle and gum on what is officially known as the … [Read more...] about In the footsteps of John Glover
A silence descends on the woods
The songbirds are falling silent in Britain and the eerie quietness descending on the woods and fields carries a grim portent for what could happen here if we do not take care of our environment. A recent census of birds in Britain revealed that songbirds especially were vanishing from the landscape in unprecedented numbers and the loss is being lamented as a tragedy for not just Britain’s natural world but for its culture. The British Trust for Ornithology says, if current … [Read more...] about A silence descends on the woods
A shovelful of beauty
The sparkling, golden eye of the shoveler caught my attention. It sparkled on the sparkling waters of the Goulds Lagoon on a sunny autumnal day. It had been a disappointing day for birds and now the shoveller, and the sun after clouds and rain, uplifted my spirits. Shovelers are one of my favourite birds and occasionally when I grow tired of the woodland birds nearer home I take a trip along the Brooker Highway to hunt out waterfowl, and particularly the shovelers. I don’t … [Read more...] about A shovelful of beauty