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Time and place, birds are a living link with history. The Tasmanian birdsong that lifts our spirits each day is the very refrain heard by the first people to inhabit these lands 40,000 years ago, the first European explorers (Charles Darwin among them) and the others who have shaped our history. When I refer to time and place I mean that no two places in the world have the same birds. It’s always been that way. The birds of Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide or Brisbane are … [Read more...] about A conversation on birds

A solitary pied oystercatcher walked across the flat, layered rocks at Resolution Creek on South Bruny Island, as if on tip-toe, trying not to disturb marine creatures hiding in narrow rockpools of splintered and eroded sandstone. The oystercatcher probed delicately in the fingers of water, suddenly throwing back its head to reveal a wriggling worm or struggling crustacean, snared by knitting-needle beak. A timeless moment on the shoreline of Adventure Bay, the oceans … [Read more...] about Bay of adventure

MOUNT Wellington throws up surprises, in all directions, in all weathers. One misty summer morning I set out on a quest for mountain birds in a direction I had not traveled before, heading south-west along the Pipeline Track high above the hamlet of Neika. I was not to be disappointed. I had in the past walked the lower part of the track below Fern Tree from where it hits the city in South Hobart. Looking at the map, the higher section held even more promise but I was not … [Read more...] about Thrillers in the mist

IT’S an endless summer for the waders that come to our shores, unlike most of the rest of us who have to make the most of the holiday season over the Christmas period.  That’s the time when Tasmanians flock to the beaches to take advantage of the best summer has to offer after our long winter that always seems to stretch well into spring. Migratory shorebirds, however, manage to dodge winter, travelling to different ends of the earth to exploit the seasons most favourable … [Read more...] about A summer without end

Fact is stranger than fiction, as the saying goes, and the film Healing about the relationship between a prisoner and an eagle under his care certainly mirrors a program once tried at Risdon Prison.  The film, which aired on the ABC in late last month after general release in cinemas earlier in the year, has brought back fond memories for Nick Mooney of the groundbreaking Tasmanian rehabilitation program he supervised to link the lives of convicts to injured birds of … [Read more...] about Prison eagles fly high