I was the man on the mountain, standing on a rocky outcrop as the snows of a blizzard swirled around me. Seduced as I often am by the mountain’s beauty, I had driven to the Springs for a walk to Sphinx Rock. The sun had shone strong and hard on the Organ Pipes when I set out and, as so often happens, the weather changed during the 20-minute drive from Hobart to the Springs. First cloud, then freezing rain and within minutes a raging blizzard. By this time I had reached … [Read more...] about The man on the mountain
The flame that never dies
As fleeting and fragile as a snowflake, the tiny flame robin flitted across the summit of Mr Wellington, singing a sweet melody as it went. In an instant it was gone, vanishing as fast as it had first been carried on the wind, its song lost to a snow drift piled high against the rocks, the soft snow swallowing the merry twitter. The rugged, unforgiving mountain peak is not home to sweet birdsong during the winter months, ringing instead with the harsh sound of the raven’s … [Read more...] about The flame that never dies
Harriers herald spring
MY phone rang hot towards the end of winter, with readers reporting the first arrival of swamp harriers from the mainland. There was a call from Lauderdale in the first week of August and then another from Ouse in the DerwentValley. I am usually the last to see these things but on the day of the Ouse call I had the shock of my life, witnessing a harrier sweep across the Tasman Highway as I drove to Sorell. The harriers are Tasmania’s only migratory birds of prey and they … [Read more...] about Harriers herald spring
Winter woes and a song to forget
My friends joked “Ah, bird flu” when I explained the reason I had been out of circulation for a week or so – a bad case of influenza. I soon grew tired of the joke as, during my confinement, I had found a yellow wattlebird and its raucous song no laughing matter. When you are feeling poorly, with a throat that feels like sandpaper, the last thing you want is a yellow wattlebird to arrive in the garden, with its harsh, guttural “song”. In some country districts I’ve even … [Read more...] about Winter woes and a song to forget
Tuned to memory lane
STANDING in a park in London earlier this year – the wood pigeons cooing softly in the branches of an oak above my head – I had a flashback to the first time I became aware of birds and their songs. People often ask me how my interest in birds started and I had always ascribed it to the day a flock of bluetits flew into my classroom shortly after I had started primary school in the early 1950s. I now know it wasn’t that day, because there was no sound beyond the gentle … [Read more...] about Tuned to memory lane