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Just another day in the garden. Not quite. It’s New Year’s Day and I am engaging in a routine I always do on January 1: compile a checklist of birds spotted, to set me on course for a new year of bird-watching.  Usually I choose a place rich in birds for my January 1 foray, sometimes in an exotic location, but this year I’m confined to my garden because of a knee injury. Not that I am complaining. In my garden I can still touch base with nature and a casual stroll will … [Read more...] about The dawn of a new year

The portents for my bird-watching in 2016 look good after what I term a remarkable discovery in the Waterworks Reserve near my home in Dynnyrne – the sighting of a flame robin. My illustrious predecessor as the Mercury’s writer on nature, Michael Sharland, wrote in his Tasmanian Birds of 1948 that among members of the robin family, the flame robin was the one most likely to be seen in Tasmania. Well, 68 years on, I can write with authority that this is no longer the case. I … [Read more...] about Flame robin reveals itself at last

The sounds of Christmas – the songs and the tunes associated with the festive season – have a special place in my heart. With most people its Christmas carols and jingles, but when this time of year comes around a song of a bird is firmly fixed in my subconscious. Not surprisingly it is the song of the European robin. As a child growing up in Britain, when I awoke early to open my Christmas presents – too early for my parents – robins were always singing their winter … [Read more...] about Sing a song of Christmas

The magical place I call birdland creeps up on you unexpectedly, like a rare bird which appears to fly out of the blue, from nowhere. Once you’ve been there, you will never forget it. Two years ago it was the realm of the swift parrot on what had been a routine mission to report on a conservation program involving forty-spotted pardalotes on South Bruny Island. This year I was transported to the world of the magnificent peregrine falcon, the fastest creature on earth, which … [Read more...] about A sight for sore eyes

The final pieces of the migration jigsaw still had to be put in place as the “dynamic duo” set off for their latest bird-watching safari at the Waterworks Reserve. The “dynamic duo” comprised myself and well-known birding guide Denis Abbott and, leading a walk as part of the Hobart Council’s Bush Adventures program, we had in our sights two migrant species which had so far eluded us in the spring, the pallid cuckoo and satin flycatcher. The satin flycatcher is traditionally … [Read more...] about Dynamic duo goes cuckoo