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Most of the cockies have left the Hobart suburbs with the start of spring, taking mischief and mayhem with them. I’m always sorry to see the big flocks go at the start of September, heading to their happy hunting grounds in country districts. The antics of the sulphur-crested cockatoos keep me entertained during the sombre winter months, along with admiring their beautiful display of colour, mixing the yellow of their crests with the pure--white of their bodies. Not … [Read more...] about Humans and cockies battle it out

My daily ritual of taking a walk on the wild side has a name in Japanese culture, shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”. I learned this one bright and sunny late-winter’s day when I stopped in the Waterworks Reserve to chat with a visitor photographing birds. The photographer had set out to find the elusive pink robin and, seeing my binoculars and noting I was a birder, he asked where he might find the species. As happens when birders meet, the conversation soon started to … [Read more...] about ‘Forest bathing’ with pink robin a reward

A flock of needletail swifts flew high in the sky, weaving in and out of the clouds. It was a rare sight, these mercurial birds only occasionally coming into view across Tasmania. The arrival of the white-throated needletails in the summer months usually sends birdwatchers into a flutter. I had only seen them on one previous occasion when I suddenly saw them flying over Sandy Bay. The only problem was I was attending a parent-teacher meeting at my son’s school. The teacher … [Read more...] about Needletails top of the class

They say that one swallow does not make a spring but it certainly looked that way on Monday afternoon. A lone welcome swallow had arrived at the Waterworks Reserve as the temperature hit a warm and sunny 21 degrees. My records usually show the swallows arriving around the first weekend of September but I had a shock last year when they were late to show up. It’s always a worry when migratory birds appear late, and in smaller number, because it raises the possibility of a … [Read more...] about Spring arrives on the wings of a swallow

Birdwatching is all about time and place and there was no better place to be for a group of international students than the banks of the Sandy Bay Rivulet earlier this month. By chance, the students had arrived for a community conservation initiative just as the first birds of spring were arriving from the mainland. It made the talk I was giving on the wonders of birds so much easier to deliver. All I had to do was concentrate on the wonders of bird migration. As part of … [Read more...] about Migrants in the record books