MY phone rang hot towards the end of winter, with readers reporting the first arrival of swamp harriers from the mainland. There was a call from Lauderdale in the first week of August and then another from Ouse in the DerwentValley. I am usually the last to see these things but on the day of the Ouse call I had the shock of my life, witnessing a harrier sweep across the Tasman Highway as I drove to Sorell. The harriers are Tasmania’s only migratory birds of prey and they … [Read more...] about Harriers herald spring
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.
Winter woes and a song to forget
My friends joked “Ah, bird flu” when I explained the reason I had been out of circulation for a week or so – a bad case of influenza. I soon grew tired of the joke as, during my confinement, I had found a yellow wattlebird and its raucous song no laughing matter. When you are feeling poorly, with a throat that feels like sandpaper, the last thing you want is a yellow wattlebird to arrive in the garden, with its harsh, guttural “song”. In some country districts I’ve even … [Read more...] about Winter woes and a song to forget
Tuned to memory lane
STANDING in a park in London earlier this year – the wood pigeons cooing softly in the branches of an oak above my head – I had a flashback to the first time I became aware of birds and their songs. People often ask me how my interest in birds started and I had always ascribed it to the day a flock of bluetits flew into my classroom shortly after I had started primary school in the early 1950s. I now know it wasn’t that day, because there was no sound beyond the gentle … [Read more...] about Tuned to memory lane
A song for every season
We all have our harbingers of spring. To the farmers it’s the welcome swallow that tells them when to sow, and then when to reap at the end of summer. To the orchardists it is the arrival of the black-faced cuckoo-shrike that signals not only blossom on apple and pear trees in spring, but picking time when the summer birds – as they are known in country districts – retreat to the mainland during the autumn. To me it’s not the actual arrival of spring that is heralded by the … [Read more...] about A song for every season
Free-for-all in the oceans
The ocean teems with life, above and below the surface. Under the waves in Tasmanian waters at this time of the year are some of the biggest creatures known to nature – southern right and humpback whales – and sailing the winds above them, the biggest of birds, the wandering and royal albatrosses. The Mercury has reported in recent weeks big numbers of whales on the move from sub-Antarctic seas to calving grounds along the eastern Australian coastline. At the same time … [Read more...] about Free-for-all in the oceans