Standing on a traffic island, it was not the safest or most convenient place to watch birds. I had no other option. At high tide in Ralphs Bay the roosting waders were crowded onto the only patch of seashell and sand they could find just a metre or so beneath the highway running through Lauderdale that borders the bay. A report of rare banded stilts in the bay had drawn me to Lauderdale but driving through the hamlet I had caught sight of a flock of smaller waders and … [Read more...] about Wader hide and seek on the highway
Tickled pink by Disney duck
It’s curious, even comical, more like a cartoon character from Disneyland than a real-life bird. Worldwide there is no species of wildfowl quite like the pink-eared duck. It’s a bird that looks like it’s been cobbled together as an afterthought, with pieces left over from the construction of myriad other species. It’s the duck-billed platypus of the bird world. It resembles a shoveller but is smaller, and the bill is less like a shovel than an instrument used for poking … [Read more...] about Tickled pink by Disney duck
Super-sized hunt for gulls
In the great gull hunt all roads lead to McDonald’s and the other fast-food outlets dotted around the Derwent. I had signed up for the annual count of gulls that BirdLife Tasmania organises each winter and had been assigned good gull country between the Tasman and Bridgewater bridges. Tasmania has three gull species and I knew where to look for the smallest, and most common of these, the silver gull. Any place where humans gathered to eat fast food would do. For the other, … [Read more...] about Super-sized hunt for gulls
Looking for the past
He could be found on Elizabeth Mall in the centre of Hobart any weekday afternoon, lost and lonely looking for the past. David Mooney had retired from his position as horse racing writer on the Chronicle a year previously and didn’t know what to do with himself during the afternoons and evenings when the horses were not running at Hobart’s track. Horse racing, in fact, held little interest for him, something he had discovered the day he walked down the stairs of the … [Read more...] about Looking for the past
Felled by swallows
There is was, stubbie in hand, gazing over the water towards BrunyIsland with high hopes of seeing a sea eagle. It’s the kind of bird-watching I enjoy most: comfortable surroundings with alcohol on tap, great company and the expectation of seeing something if not rare, at least unusual. Perhaps the music blaring out over the extensive gardens of the Oyster Cove Inn at Kettering south of Hobart might not have been totally conducive to the task at hand but the green rosellas … [Read more...] about Felled by swallows