A party of black-faced cuckoo-shrikes fluttered in undulating flight across an impossibly blue sky as I tucked into my treat for the day, a lemonade scone served with cream and strawberry jam.
I was birdwatching in style, taking morning coffee at the Mt Nelson Signal Station restaurant and at the same time enjoying a feast of birds passing the veranda where I was seated with a birding buddy, Denis Abbott.
The great thing about bird-watching in Hobart is it’s possible to put birds on the menu of some of the best eating establishments in town. I’m not talking about birds being literally on the plate, more the passing parade they present from restaurant windows, in Mt Nelson’s case against a sweeping panorama stretching across the Derwent to Frederick Henry Bay and beyond.
Denis and I lead birding walks for the City of Hobart Bush Adventures program and we often meet at Mt Nelson to plan our latest forays, and at the same time try to add to our checklist of birds spotted from the restaurant.
The highlight has to be a beautiful firetail observed some time back but even without rarities there are familiar species to entertain us. A party of superb fairy wrens often arrives to beg crumbs from diners at the outside tables on the veranda, the only place I have seen blue wrens taking hand-outs of food.
In the peppermint and blue gums in the Mt Nelson reserve high above the city black-headed honeyeaters sing from the canopy and lower down in the stately trees scarlet robins launch themselves from perches to spear insects in the long grass on the ground.
During spring flame robins can also be seen as they migrate from coastal wintering areas to breeding grounds on the slopes of kunanyi/Mr Wellington and again in autumn when they return.
Because of the marvellous view, Mt Nelson is my favourite spot for lunch but there are two others. Along the Derwent itself the Boathouse restaurant and its outside eating areas gives a panorama over Cornelian Bay at New Town. This is a great spot for watching water and shorebirds and a highlight are the pied oystercatchers as they probe sand and mud for invertebrate marine life. In the winter months hoary-headed grebes can also be seen diving for fish just off shore.
Another great place to watch birds in comfort is the restaurant in the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. This, too, has a view of the Derwent but it is the forest birds that are the restaurant’s biggest attraction. I always tell visitors keen to see our endemic species that the gardens are the place to find many of them.
Highlights are the yellow wattlebird – the biggest of the honeyeaters – and the green rosella. Both species can be seen and heard in the exotic trees surrounding the restaurant.
I often write that the beauty of birdwatching is that it is not an interest confined to a certain time, or place. Birds are everywhere, always on display even, in Hobart, while taking a leisurely lunch.