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
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.
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’
Windows spell menace for birds
A thud at the window of my study as I was typing away at my latest bird column. I didn’t need to go to the panes, and look outside to see what had made the noise. I was pretty sure it was a bird strike. Although I try to shield my windows - to reduce reflection of green leaf and sky which might lead birds to believe they are flying into open space - my home is prone to occasional bird strike. The house sits on the edge of the bush and birds in the frenzy and delirium of the … [Read more...] about Windows spell menace for birds
The language of birds
My first close encounter with birds came when a flock of blue tits flew through a classroom window of the primary school I attended in Britain in the 1950s. The arrival of the birds was opportune because that very morning the class had had nature study, a core syllabus at the time. Nature study took its place firmly alongside the Three Rs, reading, writing and ’rithmatic, Nature study meshed nicely with the first two because when it came to learning to read many of the … [Read more...] about The language of birds