Don Knowler

Like the dusky robin, another Tasmanian endemic species to fly back in time is the Tasmanian scrubwren. It might appear an unobtrusive, nervous little bird – quick to flee from approaching footsteps on a mountain trail – but its buzzing alarm call echoes back to a time when it aided and abetted those most feared in the fledgling colony. The scrubwren made its home among the bushrangers, the murderers and thieves who terrorised Tasmania’s citizens in the Victorian era. The … [Read more...] about Tasmanian scrubwren

A tiny scrubtit, so small it could dance in the palm of your hand, had found its place in the sun. In the dim and dank world of the fern glade the scrubtit had emerged from the shadows and found a warm rock on which to perform a merry dance. This was the male's territory of fern frond and tumbling stream and he wanted the world to know it. The scrubtit, barely 10cm long, is one of Tasmania’s forgotten birds, easily overlooked as nature lovers go in search of more … [Read more...] about Scrubtit

Echoing the title of the Coen brothers’ film, No Country for Old Men, Tasmania can be no country for the lazy birdwatcher. At least as far as the Tasmanian thornbill is concerned. The thornbill not only falls into the category of difficult to identify, LBBs (little brown birds), but its identification is compounded by a remarkably similar mainland species also found in Tasmania, the brown thornbill. To separate them requires time and patience, although if the birder … [Read more...] about Tasmanian thornbill

Tasmania’s endemic birds are a living link to the state’s history and there is no greater example of this connection than the dusky robin. The robin made itself known to the first settlers as they set about clearing the land of native forest. It was, in fact, known as the “stump robin” for its habit of using the stumps of felled trees as a convenient perch to pounce on insects on the ground. No doubt it also hung around the encampments of the Aborigines during their own … [Read more...] about Dusky robin

The native hen is one of those creatures that looks like it doesn’t belong to the world of nature. It’s not the product of evolution but the cartoonist’s pen. It joins the Roadrunner from Looney Tunes as being more at home on the screen than in the natural environment. I look at the native hen in the same way I look at the eastern rosella. The rosella’s mix of crimson, green, yellow and white in its plumage is a contradiction of colour. It appears too disarming, too … [Read more...] about Tasmanian native hen