Don Knowler

For years I have struggled to answer a reader’s query about whether some species of cuckoo return to collect their young after they have been raised by surrogate parents. The query has been partly answered by the discovery this spring that one of the cuckoo species visiting Tasmania during the breeding season, the pallid cuckoo, does indeed return to take over the parenting of their fledglings after they have been raised by other birds. I’m indebted to BirdLife Tasmania … [Read more...] about Secrets of the pallid cuckoo revealed

It was difficult to believe that the bird resting in front of me on a Tasmanian beach – a bundle of feather and bone weighing less than a small pack of frozen peas – had only recently completed an epic 14,000 kilometre fight. The bar-tailed godwit sat with another of its species amid a patch of dune grass squeezed between sea, sand and a barbed-wire fence protecting a vital shorebird resting and breeding site on the South Arm. The two birds displayed juvenile plumage, … [Read more...] about Ultra-distance traveller comes to grief

Although thousands of wild birds each year have bands attached to their legs to plot their travels, only a tiny fraction of these are recovered. But when they do turn up they can reveal some remarkable statistics. One banding success story concerns a Tasmanian silver gull straying far from home to reach Queensland. Not only that, the gull has broken records for the longevity of the species. It was found to be at least 29 years old. The story of the silver gull starts on … [Read more...] about Gull in a tangle springs a surprise

Strolling through my local reserve I was stopped in my tracks by the rasping call of what I regard as the most beautiful bird of the woods, the satin flycatcher. It was not just the weather – hot and sultry – that told me we were heading into summer after a savage winter that seemed to linger well into spring. The flycatcher heralds the summer season and is traditionally the last of the migrants to arrive from the mainland, in my experience reaching Tasmania in about the … [Read more...] about Satin flycatcher puts the seal on summer migration

It doesn’t take much to bring back the birds. Just a neglected space and a few pairs of willing hands will do the trick to create a home for our feathered friends. A year or so ago the enthusiastic members of the Waterworks Landcare Group took a long, hard look at an overgrown quarry on their patch and decided it would make an ideal nature reserve. Although it was merely an idea, a project to provide a little variety to the volunteers’ monthly tree-planting and … [Read more...] about Quarry a mine of bird delights