Don Knowler

The cuckoos have stopped calling, their cunning work done for summer. In the first week of the new year, the fan-tailed cuckoo seemed to be the only cuckoo calling at the Queen’s Domain in Hobart where just before Christmas the calls of not only fantails, but pallid and shining bronze-cuckoos had bounced off the gums and casuarinas. The adults might have fallen silent but the dry woodlands were filled with noisy cuckoo young, making life difficult for overworked surrogate … [Read more...] about Cuckoos fall silent in the woods and fields

The birds didn’t exactly fall silent on my home turf during the 2021 national backyard bird count. But on my home turf their songs and calls were drowned out by a substantial building development within sight and earshot of my garden. The birds were still around, I think, but the sound of the warning bleeps of reversing concrete trucks and the hammering of nail guns made it an unfriendly environment. So instead I took my notebook and binoculars a short distance away to a … [Read more...] about Hobart – the blue wren capital of Australia

Like it or not, we are all creatures of ritual. The birds and animals are not alone in having their lives controlled and in sync with the rhythms of the seasons. Although I am normally a late sleeper, some inexplicable impulse had me rising at dawn on December 22 – the summer equinox which sees the southern hemisphere recording the longest day of the year. The family of grey butcherbirds which inhabits my garden also noted the event marking the high point of summer. There … [Read more...] about Changing seasons make for a wild ride

The pop world is all a twitter after an album devoted to birdsong gate-crashed the Aria charts. The album produced by the birding organisation, Birdlife Australia, is built on the premise that birds are among the most talented singer-songwriters on earth. And long before anyone had heard of Elvis, the Beatles and even Taylor Swift in more recent times, the birds were the first to make music. The aim of the album, called Songs of Disappearance, is to promote awareness of … [Read more...] about Birds hit a high note in pop charts

Winemakers in California are studying a novel way to reduce the toll rodenticides take on birds of prey – using the birds themselves to control mice and rat plagues. Instead of laying down poisons, vineyard owners are encouraging an enemy of rodents, the barn owl, to establish territories among the vines. In turn, it is hoped the hungry owls will eat into the rodent problem. The study is of interest to Tasmania where the growing use of ever-powerful rodenticides is having … [Read more...] about Owls a vintage solution to rodent plague