William Boot, the bumbling war correspondent in the satirical novel about journalism, Scoop, and I have much in common. Or so I have been told by readers of “On the wing”. Although I’ve tried to develop the image of a cool, jet-setting journalist – at least during my younger days – I’ve never quite escaped the shadow of William Boot, the nature writer for the Daily Beast who found himself sent to Africa to cover human conflict by mistake. Notebook in hand, sharp pencil at … [Read more...] about Scoop! News from the parrot front
A fantail in safe hands
Somewhere out in the great blue yonder a grey fantail is carrying an identification tag which might in time shed new light on the remarkable migration of our birds. The fantail was given a leg band as part of a banding exercise In the Waterworks Reserve late last year, supervised by banding expert Catherine Young. Although banding – or ringing as bird researchers describe it in my native Britain – is commonplace on the mainland, banders are few and far between in … [Read more...] about A fantail in safe hands
Swift parrot
This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ’E’s expired and gone to meet ’is maker! ‘E's a stiff! Bereft of life, ’e rests in peace! The life and times of the swift parrot reads like a Monty Python script, the sort of thing that featured in the off-beat comedy team’s dead parrot sketch. The researchers and conservationists battling to save the parrot do not see the funny side, however, especially as the bird in 2016 was listed as critically endangered. It’s only a … [Read more...] about Swift parrot
Orange-bellied parrot
Although I had lived in Tasmania for nearly 20 years, I never laid eyes on one of the world’s rarest wild birds, the orange-bellied parrot, until late 2016. I had often stood on the runway at Cambridge Airport in Hobart waving off birding friends on their jaunt to see the parrot, but I’d never been tempted to join them. I had not wanted to be a classed as a twitcher, flying in to the well-established feeding stations to see the parrot without any effort, to tick it off on … [Read more...] about Orange-bellied parrot
Forty-spotted pardalote
A bird in the hand is better than a bird in the bush, as the saying goes, and I had a wry smile on my face, looking at a forty-spotted pardalote in the cup of my palm. I had set off to find the forty-spot, which is confined to just a few stretches of gum woodlands in Tasmania, and here I was holding a bird retrieved from the mist-net used to catch it. The location was north Bruny Island, the main stronghold of the pardalote, and my services had been enlisted by a … [Read more...] about Forty-spotted pardalote