A party of black-faced cuckoo-shrikes fluttered in undulating flight across an impossibly blue sky as I tucked into my treat for the day, a lemonade scone served with cream and strawberry jam. I was birdwatching in style, taking morning coffee at the Mt Nelson Signal Station restaurant and at the same time enjoying a feast of birds passing the veranda where I was seated with a birding buddy, Denis Abbott. The great thing about bird-watching in Hobart is it’s possible to put … [Read more...] about Birdwatching in style
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.
Lorikeets on the wrong side of the tracks
As a fiery sun vanished behind the palm trees bordering Luna Park in Melbourne, rainbow lorikeets were putting on an equally spectacular show, as they always do at sunset. Noisy and pushy; they jostled for position in prime roosting sites among the fronds, oblivious to mayhem on a slightly different scale taking place just below them as the lively and eccentric St Kilda residents positioned themselves for the evening that lie ahead. I love Acland St with its cake shops by … [Read more...] about Lorikeets on the wrong side of the tracks
Albatrocity on the high seas
The Wooden Boat Festival has come around again, an event I always associate with the legendary bird of the southern oceans, the albatross. It’s easy to see why – during the 2013 festival I actually saw the lanky shape of a shy albatross not 40 metres off-shore of the Hobart docks.. I thought at the time the albatross would make an apt symbol for the festival, particularly the shy albatross which breeds exclusively on just a few Tasmanian islands. I had been told … [Read more...] about Albatrocity on the high seas
Optimism for the year ahead
A young shining bronze-cuckoo ushered in a new year of birdwatching when I went on a birding excursion to the Waterworks Reserve on the first day of 2019. The cuckoo was not what I had expected because I had in mind the birds that I usually associate with summer, the satin flycatcher, the black-faced cuckoo shrike and the dusky woodswallow among them. The four species of cuckoos visiting Tasmania are also summer visitors but I’m not a fan of the cuckoo family. At this time … [Read more...] about Optimism for the year ahead
Molly the raven brings a ‘gift’
Christmas day brought a present I had not expected, not from Santa but a female raven I have befriended over the years. The raven I call Molly introduced me to her offspring as my Yule-tide surprise. Birds had been off the radar during the Christmas build-up as I rushed about town doing the last of the holiday shopping. And on Christmas morning I did not pay much attention to an unusual raven call I heard coming from my garden’s exotic wattles. It was an insistent, … [Read more...] about Molly the raven brings a ‘gift’