Foreward to Field Guide to Tasmanian Fungi, published 2016 MYCOLOGISTS call them the “orphans” of the wild, the fungi that live at the fringe of our consciousness when we tramp forest and glade. In search of a metaphor I prefer to call fungi Cinderellas of the woods. You find Cinderella working away in the dim, dank basement of the forest floor, often being bullied and threatened, at least in my Hobart valley in the shadows of Mount Wellington, by the ugly sisters of … [Read more...] about Cinderellas of the glades
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Wilderness comes to the city
Mercury taking point, September, 2017, opposing cable car plan for kunanyi/Mt Wellington. Where I come from we don’t have mountains or indeed wilderness. It’s not surprising then that someone like myself born in London and brought up on its suburban fringes should have a fascination with the high country. To say nothing of the south-west wilderness. Along with exotic animals, mountains always seemed to feature in the picture books I was bought as a child. They reared off … [Read more...] about Wilderness comes to the city
A mountain metaphor for retirement
Tasweeekend magazine, Saturday Mercury, September 2017 Walking to work each day I’d look up at kunanyi/Mt Wellington towering above me and long to be up there, exploring rainforest and ravine, woodland and waterfall. Work as a journalist always got in the way, the priorities of typeface over rockface, and I would have to wait for retirement to realise a long-cherished dream of visiting the mountain daily for an entire year, recording the seasons in my shorthand … [Read more...] about A mountain metaphor for retirement
Indian summer turns up the heat
The clarion call to prepare for autumn came this year from the yellow-throated honeyeaters which make my garden their home. Autumn usually announces itself with a sudden chill in the air at dawn and dusk, the musty smell of vegetation past the sell-by date of summer and a drawing in of light in the early evening. This year, however, the yellowthroats appeared to be in fuller voice than usual. The call – a loud, staccato “tonk, tonk, tonk” – woke me in the early morning and … [Read more...] about Indian summer turns up the heat
The twitcher’s curse
A magpie-lark strutting about the walkways and car park of the marina at Prince of Wales Bay has created a stir in the twitcher-sphere. The sighting in Derwent Park of the species, which is usually seen on the mainland, was first reported by the twitcher’s bible, the Eremaea birdline website, in January and again in person to me when Pieter van der Woude, who runs wildlife cruises to Bathurst Harbour and Port Davey, saw the bird late last month at his mooring at the … [Read more...] about The twitcher’s curse