Don Knowler

Every year during the annual Tasmanian gull count I’m reminded we must never under-estimate these amazing birds even though in some quarters they are derisively called “rats with wings”. The truth is our gulls are highly intelligent and not quite as unhygienic and unsanitary as we might imagine. And, like many other bird species, they also have a sense of time and place to rival our own. I first became aware of gulls’ awareness of time during my primary schooldays in … [Read more...] about Counting the way gulls mirror our lives

Far off-shore a gannet wheeled in the sky across the Derwent Estuary. It paused as if frozen in mid-air and then plunged into the water, sending up a huge spray of water. It emerged with what looked like silvery fish before the seabird was beating the air again with huge black-tipped white wings. I was watching a remarkable bird at a remarkable place, Crayfish Point at Taroona, a birdwatching hotspot that had escaped my attention in the past. I have to thank our gardening … [Read more...] about Students tackle citizen science

Like customers in an up-market beds and bedding store, forty-spotted pardalotes have been presented with a range of home comforts to make life a little more comfortable. The forty-spot initiative is not just about the supply of soft bedding, though. The bedding contains a pesticide which is ridding the pardalote chicks of a parasitic fly decimating their number. Found only in Tasmania, the forty-spotted pardalote numbers probably no more than 1500 birds, most found in … [Read more...] about Forty-spots can now rest assured

High up in a crack willow a white goshawk tore at a mouse it had just snatched from a chicken coop, making the most of its meal. It was the first white goshawk I had seen all year in the Waterworks Valley where I live and the sighting should have been a cause for celebration. Instead, I was filled with dread in the knowledge that rodents frequenting homes and farms can sometimes carry mice and rat poisons devastating to wildlife. By coincidence, two days after spotting the … [Read more...] about Rat poison poses danger to raptors

To employ a totally over-used pun when it comes to bird-watching, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by joining the great swift parrot hunt on the mainland this autumn. I had missed out on seeing swift parrots in Tasmania – the only place they nest – last breeding season and so I thought I’d seize the opportunity of finding them in their winter habitat on the south-eastern mainland. At the same time, I’d do a little bit of citizen science by adding to a census on … [Read more...] about The great swift parrot hunt