The yellow wattlebird was firmly in my sights when I first arrived in Tasmania 20 years ago, the biggest of the honeyeaters and a species found nowhere else on earth.
Swotting up on its song, however, I was a little shocked to learn that it was described in a bird book as sounding like someone “vomiting”. Indeed, local birders had dubbed it the “chuck bird”.
I soon discovered what they were talking about. To this day I call it the “hangover honeyeater’’ after a memorable introduction to Sunday Tasmanian journalists Simon Bevilacqua and Lindsay Tuffin when I joined the newspaper. We went “carousing”, as they termed it, and I woke up at dawn the next morning after falling asleep on my lawn, the retching, guttural sound of the chuck bird reverberating through my head and stomach.
It is an anecdote I thought best left for another day when BirdLife Tasmania celebrated its 50th anniversary this month. Men behaving badly wouldn’t fit with heroic tales of birding in extreme locations, on mountains and on the high seas.
All this activity had built vital data – some bird population records the oldest in Australia, spanning a period extending to before the formation of the Bird Observers’ Association of Tasmania in 1971, the forerunner of the organisation now known as BirdLife Tasmania.
A series of speakers, some in at the formation of the organisation, detailed the highs and lows of efforts to protect Tasmania’s birds over half a century, especially the 12 species unique to the island.
BirdLife Tasmania is dedicated to conservation, education and advocacy and beyond the gathering of vital data from bird surveys, progress reports were given on programs to protect both birds and their habitat.
Among the education programs are those designed to draw attention to the threats facing beach-nesting birds during the summer breeding season. A stand-out has been the “dog’s breakfast” events on beaches in which dog owners learn how their pets are impacting on sensitive environments.
The Tasmanian group now falls under the umbrella of the national ornithological organisation, BirdLife Australia, and the chief executive Paul Sullivan said the dedication of the 400 Tasmanian members made him proud to be a member of the wider movement.
Dr Eric Woehler, convenor of BirdLife Tasmania, said that the founding members in 1971 “could not have dreamt of the spectrum of threats and issues facing Tasmania’s birds and their habitats today”.
The long-term scientific data sets would be critical for the challenges the next 50 years would throw up.
The celebratory occasion on the Hobart waterfront was not all about maps, graphs and statistics. There was a social element later in which stories could be exchanged. Amid the craic and euphoria, I not only kept my anecdotes in check, but my social drinking.
Afterall, I didn’t want the chuck bird to call again the next morning.