The tiger snake gave me an unsympathetic stare. Forget ophidiophobia – the fear of snakes – I was afflicted by something far more frightening. Feelings of panic, a knot in the stomach, a rising nausea…. I had glossophobia, the fear of public speaking and the tiger snake, rising to near its full one and a half metres in length to view me through the glass of its pen, didn’t seem to care. My encounter with the snake and a near 300-strong audience came during the 2014 … [Read more...] about Caught in the headlights
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Seal of approval in the suburbs
A quiet Sunday afternoon in the suburbs surrounding Prince of Wales Bay. People walking dogs, a man fishing from a boat, children playing in a playground at the water’s edge. It could have been any suburb, any Sunday, until something remarkable happened, an event which could only occur in a city where the human and natural worlds come together and share common ground. A fur seal made an appearance, drawing human onlookers to the foreshore and sending anxious black swans … [Read more...] about Seal of approval in the suburbs
The north versus the south
A great white egret gave me a menacing stare on the boardwalk which runs through the Tamar Wetlands Reserve in Launceston. The egret, standing more than a metre tall, had flown with slow, lazy flaps of his giant wings from his feeding ground in shallow water to roost on the boardwalk at mid-day. The late autumn wind blowing in from the south had eased, and the beautiful egret with lacy, pure-white plumage wanted to soak up the sun which had just broken through the … [Read more...] about The north versus the south
The voice of Tasmania
The eastern rosellas were in full voice, chattering in the white peppermint gums as I followed the narrow road to the deep north one sunny afternoon last month. I borrow the title of Richard Flanagan’s epic novel simply because my journey was inspired by the author himself. Long before he had been awarded the Man Booker Prize I attended the launch of The Narrow Road to the Deep North and asked Flanagan he if he would sign a copy for me. His inscription said I’d “find some … [Read more...] about The voice of Tasmania
Waders fail to show
I scouted the wetlands and mudflats as part of Birdlife Tasmania’s summer wader count and my observations – or lack of them – confirmed alarming statistics that numbers of migratory shorebirds are in freefall not just in Tasmania but right across Australia’s coasts. In fact I did not record one visitor from the northern hemisphere but I am happy to report that others were seen in the wetlands survey around Tasmania’s coasts. Not in the vast numbers seen in past years, … [Read more...] about Waders fail to show