Don Knowler

IT’S official. The superb fairy-wren has been named Australia’s favourite bird. The beautiful little species that brings such magic to Tasmanian gardens each summer with its friendly nature has won a national poll to identify the country’s most-loved feathered creature. The vote was organised by BirdLife Australia during Bird Week 2013 in October and the research and conservation organisation reports that a poll of 8000 bird lovers revealed a “very close race” for top spot … [Read more...] about Superb result for our favourite wren

For 12 years I searched for tawny frogmouths in my local birding patch, the Waterworks Reserve in Dynnyrne.   It was a tantalising hunt for a decade. I had heard frogmouths calling over the years, at dawn and dusk and sometimes in the night when I had also searched for masked owls.  I had also seen frogmouths in other areas of Hobart but I had always been told about their location by readers. I had never been able to track down these amazing birds, with superb camouflage … [Read more...] about Success in the blink of an eye

Birdland is a magical place where it’s possible to escape all the pressures and stresses of the environment of the city created and inhabited by one species - humans – and immerse yourself in a less one-dimensional world.  Birdland is nowhere in particular, and does not have to be special or noteworthy. It could be in the wildest of wild forest, or in suburbia. It could be a pristine beach, a few hectares of eucalypt woodland, or a neatly manicured city park. It could be a … [Read more...] about Passport to birdland

With a little held from my friends. The lyric of the Beatles song rang out across the garden from an open window in my lounge, at the very moment a striated pardalote struck up in song. It was an appropriate duet, a song of the suburbs, because earlier I had been reading an email from Bruce Longmore and Sue Drake about their efforts to provide a home for pardalotes in their Ridgeway garden, to help out the tiny birds in the ever-increasing hunt for nesting cavities each … [Read more...] about A little help for feathered friends

The last of the summer migrants, the beautiful satin flycatchers, have arrived safely this year at the place I always find them in mid-spring, a stretch of white peppermint eucalypt woodland in the Waterworks Reserve.  These birds are the most eye-catching of the migrants, the males with a plumage of shimmering satin feathers on their head and backs, set against a silvery-grey on the breast. The females mix grey, ivory and a splash of russet on the throat.  The flycatchers … [Read more...] about Satin flycatchers welcomed back