Don Knowler

My birthday falls on an auspicious date – September 11th – and ever since the horror of the World Trade Centre attack, to mark my own milestone I have tended to take myself as far removed from the events of 2001 as I can. No TV, no newspapers, just the wild world and the refrain of birdsong in the woods or the sound of crashing surf. Last September it was a day enjoying the ocean off Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. In contrast, this year and amid pandemic restrictions on … [Read more...] about Wombat springs a birthday surprise

I awake at dawn to what sounds like a truck reversing. The “truck” is beeping an alarm designed to warn pedestrians it is moving backwards. Only this beeping seems to go on forever. It pulsates from dawn until the sun rises beyond the wattles and gums at the end of my garden, and then all morning and sometimes into the afternoon. The beeping drives me mad. I know its source. It’s not a truck at all, of course. It’s just the mating, territorial call of the brush bronzewing … [Read more...] about Bronzewing delivers truck-load of woe

The fan-tailed cuckoo left me hanging in suspense this winter when it failed to show as it always does, towards the end of August. Migrants arriving late, and sometimes not at all, always gives cause for concern at a time of declining bird numbers but I had no need to worry about this species of cuckoo which is generally common in the Hobart area. I had received reports that the familiar descending, trill of the cuckoo had been heard in other places, birds apparently … [Read more...] about ‘Sociopaths’ leave it late

The pink robins of the Waterworks Reserve have been able to take a breather during the Covid-19 pandemic from the groups of international and mainland birders who give them a hard time in the spring. The beautiful robin is either absent from most of Australia or hard to find so it is high on the checklist of birds to be spotted in a reserve so close to Hobart, where it is common. The problem is the use of mobile phone apps of bird songs which can lead target species to … [Read more...] about pink robins sing song of their own

My spring ritual of lying in wait at the Waterworks Reserve for the first welcome swallows to arrive has been thrown into disarray this year. During the winter I had already seen swallows at the Queens Domain and at Howrah on the Eastern Shore. I am not alone in my winter swallow spotting. BirdlLife Tasmania reports there have been many swallow sightings in the months when the swallows should have been in their wintering grounds on the mainland. The swallows leave in late … [Read more...] about Swallows brave the winter