Birds are our contact point with nature, our window on the natural world. There are mammals about, and reptiles and amphibians, but we never see or hear them. It’s not obvious they share the planet with us. Birds are all around us, each and every day. If we can’t see them, we hear them, even in the heart of our cities. They inspire us to flight, to soar in hope and spirit. I’m quick to celebrate the idea of birds’ lives meshing with ours and I was given the opportunity to … [Read more...] about Poetry in flight and motion
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.
Ghosts of Christmas past
Evoking Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, the ghosts of Christmas past paid a visit over the holiday period. Not that I saw myself as Scrooge, with ghosts out to haunt me in a malign way as they do to the central character in Dickens’ story. The “ghosts” were friendly and benign, bringing a sackful of pleasant memories. Christmas is a time for reflection and in my case recounting festive birding experiences shared with friends over more than 40 years or so. Across the … [Read more...] about Ghosts of Christmas past
A little help from a friend
Seagulls gliding and soaring over AAMI Park in Melbourne, their outstretched wings in a rainbow of colours, pulsating in the night sky: pinks, yellows, greens and blues. The shimmering silver gulls were having a psychedelic moment and so was I. Far down below them, and far below my seat in the top tier of the stadium, Paul McCarty was into the second of about 40 numbers on the latest leg of his Australian tour, the strobe lights illuminating the stage escaping into the air … [Read more...] about A little help from a friend
The Shy Mountain
Silent and brooding, the Shy Mountain does not have to speak her name. We know she’s there, watching us, even when she chooses to hide beneath a blanket of low cloud. Although she’s not a mountain of legend like Everest, Kilimanjaro or even Kosciuszko, she has her own claim to fame. Kunanyi / Mount Wellington brings wilderness to the very doorstep of a significant centre of population, and how many mountains can claim to do that? … [Read more...] about The Shy Mountain
A letter to the editor
For more than 100 years, The Times newspaper in Britain has heralded the approach of summer by publishing a letter from the reader who hears the first call of the migratory European cuckoo. I’ve now learned that for many years there was a similar tradition in Tasmania, recording not the arrival of one of our cuckoo species from the mainland but that of the welcome swallow. The swallow clarion call came from a single reader, Charles Burbury. He wrote to the Mercury about the … [Read more...] about A letter to the editor