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A sprig of cornflower – the intense blue of its flower illuminating the darkest of spaces on Melbourne’s rattling trams – accompanied me on a magical mystery tour of that city’s hidden corners last month. My trips to Victoria might not always be about nature but all the same I can’t resist pausing to watch bird species we don’t find in Hobart, like magpie-larks on grassy roundabouts at busy city intersections, or red wattlebirds chasing smaller honeyeater species away from … [Read more...] about A meadow in the city

Charlie the parrot came into my life during the summer holiday season, more by accident than design. I’ve never owned a pet bird, or even looked after one, so the prospect of being Charlie’s carer for a week or so was a daunting one. Great responsibility goes with looking after a neighbour’s pet, especially when it is the much-loved playmate of their children. I may know a great deal about birds flying wild and free but a captive one had me out on a limb. I’m not … [Read more...] about Charlie wants a holiday

A greedy cuckoo has found not one but two surrogate parents to raise him this breeding season. And most remarkable of all, they were birds of different species, black-headed honeyeaters and scarlet robins. Last summer I was shown a cuckoo chick being fed by honeyeaters at the Waverley Floral Park in Howrah, and this season I eagerly waited for my informant, Vern Hansson, to contact me with more sightings. Vern is a skilled finder of nests, and cuckoos, and I was grateful … [Read more...] about Cuckoo doubles up on parents

There I was out on the flat surface of Sphinx Rock half-way up Mt Wellington, looking down on the city spread out before me, contemplating life, and my place in it, as I often do from such a lofty position. Usually I prefer to be alone on my rambles in and out of the clouds tumbling from the mountain top but this time I felt another presence, not in a sinister or malign way, just another being out there seeking solace and perhaps a little silence away from the hubbub, the … [Read more...] about Spirit on the mountain

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