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
On The Wing
Passport to birdland
Birdland is a magical place where it’s possible to escape all the pressures and stresses of the environment of the city created and inhabited by one species – humans – and immerse yourself in a less one-dimensional world. Birdland is nowhere in particular, and does not have to be special or noteworthy. It could be in the wildest of wild forest, or in suburbia. It could be a pristine beach, a few hectares of eucalypt woodland, or a neatly manicured city park. It could be a backyard. That’s the magic of birds; they bring beauty and wonder to every corner of the planet, wild or untamed, and my On the Wing writing is their celebration.
Cuckoo doubles up on parents
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
Spirit on the mountain
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
A conversation on birds
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
Bay of adventure
A solitary pied oystercatcher walked across the flat, layered rocks at Resolution Creek on South Bruny Island, as if on tip-toe, trying not to disturb marine creatures hiding in narrow rockpools of splintered and eroded sandstone. The oystercatcher probed delicately in the fingers of water, suddenly throwing back its head to reveal a wriggling worm or struggling crustacean, snared by knitting-needle beak. A timeless moment on the shoreline of Adventure Bay, the oceans … [Read more...] about Bay of adventure