The drought had finally broken and a pair of dusky robins told me so along the upper reaches of the Sandy Bay Rivulet just below Fern Tree. The robins flitted through the branches of stringybark and dogwood, as a raging torrent of water rushed down the rivulet, heading towards the sea. It had been a bleak summer and autumn for birds where I usually find them in the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington. The drought had driven just about every ground-feeding, insect-eating … [Read more...] about Sadness turns to joy
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.
Guerrilla in the grevilleas
A little bird darted by on chilly winds drifting down from kunanyi/Mount Wellington. It was gone in a flash, the blink of an eye, but I knew what it was immediately. There were two clues. Black and white feathers in a long tail, and a yellow-throated honeyeater in hot pursuit. The pick-pocket of the bird world, the eastern spinebill, was doing what it does best at the start of winter in the Waterworks Reserve bordering South Hobart – raiding the yellowthroat’s “honey pot” … [Read more...] about Guerrilla in the grevilleas
Currawongs warn of winter
Snow clouds gathering, and a flock of black currawongs is deserting kunanyi/Mt Wellington for lower ground. A big flock of them – 20 or 30 birds – is flying through the Waterworks Valley where I live, issuing the currawong trumpet call as they go by, heading east. Tasmanian folklore suggests that it is the sight of yellow-tailed black cockatoos in Hobart which foretells of extreme winter weather. In my experience, it is the black currawong – or mountain jay as they are … [Read more...] about Currawongs warn of winter
Black cockies on a high
A few years back I bumped into an acquaintance who was known from time to time to indulge in illegal substances. With great excitement be grabbed me by the arm outside the old Mercury building in Macquarie St, pointing towards Franklin Square across the road. “Black cockie,” he was shouting, “magnificent to see one in the city. You bewty.” I was about to ask him what he had been on, when I heard not one but a whole party of yellow-tailed black cockatoos calling from the … [Read more...] about Black cockies on a high
Birds of a feather…
Every time I find a bird feather I can’t resist picking it up and putting it in the band of my bush hat. But next time I tramp one of my favourite habitats – that of the wetland – I’m going to have a different purpose for the iridescent bottle-green flight feathers of the chestnut teal or the stunning blue ones of the purple swamp-hen I find there. A new citizen science program – the Feather Map of Australia – is asking people of all ages to collect and post in feathers they … [Read more...] about Birds of a feather…