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Far off-shore a gannet wheeled in the sky across the Derwent Estuary. It paused as if frozen in mid-air and then plunged into the water, sending up a huge spray of water. It emerged with what looked like silvery fish before the seabird was beating the air again with huge black-tipped white wings. I was watching a remarkable bird at a remarkable place, Crayfish Point at Taroona, a birdwatching hotspot that had escaped my attention in the past. I have to thank our gardening … [Read more...] about Students tackle citizen science

Like customers in an up-market beds and bedding store, forty-spotted pardalotes have been presented with a range of home comforts to make life a little more comfortable. The forty-spot initiative is not just about the supply of soft bedding, though. The bedding contains a pesticide which is ridding the pardalote chicks of a parasitic fly decimating their number. Found only in Tasmania, the forty-spotted pardalote numbers probably no more than 1500 birds, most found in … [Read more...] about Forty-spots can now rest assured

High up in a crack willow a white goshawk tore at a mouse it had just snatched from a chicken coop, making the most of its meal. It was the first white goshawk I had seen all year in the Waterworks Valley where I live and the sighting should have been a cause for celebration. Instead, I was filled with dread in the knowledge that rodents frequenting homes and farms can sometimes carry mice and rat poisons devastating to wildlife. By coincidence, two days after spotting the … [Read more...] about Rat poison poses danger to raptors

To employ a totally over-used pun when it comes to bird-watching, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by joining the great swift parrot hunt on the mainland this autumn. I had missed out on seeing swift parrots in Tasmania – the only place they nest – last breeding season and so I thought I’d seize the opportunity of finding them in their winter habitat on the south-eastern mainland. At the same time, I’d do a little bit of citizen science by adding to a census on … [Read more...] about The great swift parrot hunt

The ornate room in City Hall seemed a long way from the bucolic beauty of the Waterworks Valley. And the speech I was about to deliver to a meeting of the City of Hobart’s planning committee was a long way from the arcane language of development matters. Instead of discussing discretionary uses, zones and permits I had decided to speak on behalf of the birds. I would be their representative in a hearing devoted to a proposal to build a cluster of houses on a leafy block … [Read more...] about Speaking on behalf of the birds