Over millennia, the rich diversity of birds inhabiting the Hobart area have followed ancient ley lines shaped by the landscape and the seasons.
The first Tasmanians, the Muwinina people, and Charles Darwin in his ascent of kunanyi/Mt Wellington followed them, too.
And even today the marathon runners participating in the Point to Pinnacle share the same route negotiated in spring by migrating crescent honeyeaters and eastern spinebills, moving from winter territories near the cost to their summer breeding grounds rising 1271 metres to the summit.
The Point to Pinnacle provides a rough approximation of the route, although the birds are more likely to hug the gullies cut by the Hobart, New town and Sandy Bay rivulets.
The topography of the region represents a jigsaw of habitats, a kaleidoscope of colour. Hobart is a city unique to Australia – and probably the world – in which near-pristine bush sits side-by-side with human habitation. It provides a home to 12 species of bird found nowhere else on earth beyond Tasmania.
The manicured lawns of the Wrest Point and the summit of kunanyi/Mt Wellington represent two different worlds. At Wrest Point one of the 12 endemic species, the Tasmanian native-hen, can be seen. And along the shore a wading bird makes an appearance, the pied oystercatcher. A little south, little penguins breed.
On the other side of the CBD, the Doman gives a snapshot of what Hobart looked like before European settlement. It is clothed in wallaby grass interspersed with blue and white gums and sheoaks, providing a home for woodland birds typical of the Hobart environment, such as yellow-tailed black cockatoos, musk lorikeets, green and eastern rosellas and, in spring, swift parrots.
Where European trees have replaced native ones in inner-city parkland settings, many birds species can still be seen including the rare masked owl.
As with the Doman, the landscape of Hobart just a few kilometres beyond the ribbon of development which hugs the Derwent shore has changed little from the time of the Muwinina.
The gum species indicate different soils, and difference in temperature and rainfall and the birds also mark out wet and dry sclerophyll, pink robin and Bassian thrushes for wet country, dusky robin for dry.
The rock and soil making up the geologic foundations of the mountain are revealed by three species of the peppermint gums, their appearance as diverse as the colours of the differing strata of rock.
As the marathon route threads is way through the mountain’s foothills, stringybarks replace blue gums, and then peppermint gums emerge. Black peppermints form a canopy of narrow, finger-like leaves along the Huon Road beyond South Hobart. The black peppermints grow on sandstone and yellow wattlebirds, another bird species endemic to Tasmania, frolic in their branches. The foothills feature sedimentary sandstones and mudstones laid down during the Permian Period (230-280 million years ago). Further towards the mountain these are overlaid by sandstones rich in quartz formed during the Triassic (180-230 million years ago). Finally, molten igneous rock from the Jurassic Period 170 million years ago tops the summit, the dolerite Organ Pipes the standout feature.
Silver peppermints replace the black peppermints in places. These eucalypts favour a foundation of mudstone and the fragile rock, crumbling and soft, is revealed along the roadside edge. Yellow-throated honeyeaters, another endemic species, flit through boughs and branches holding thin and shiny tin-foil leaves. Then come white peppermints, more restrained than their silver cousins with muted yellow bark and blue-green leaves.
Approaching the Springs half-way up the mountain, the signature tune of the Tasmanian high country rings out. The trumpet song of the black currawong replaces the “clinking” call of the grey currawongs, chiefly heard in the drier areas closer to Hobart. Although true rainforest is usually associated with Tasmania’s wild west, there are high-rainfall species like myrtle, sassafras and gum-topped stringybark here, and strands of the tallest flowering plant on the planet, swamp gums.
Beyond the Springs, the forest canopy thins to be replaced by yellow and snow gums. The alpine vegetation at the exposed, cold and windy summit beyond the tree line is small, tough, but colourful in spring and summer with masses of cream and white flowers complementing the reds and bronzes of new foliage, and the silver of lichen on the bare rocks. Here flame robins find a home in summer.
From the summit, the Derwent Estuary is seen spread out far down below, the watercourse snaking north. The Derwent Valley represents another ley line – navigated by interstate migrating birds using the sun and stars as their compass. They arrive in spring and depart when autumn bites, completing Hobart’s rich tapestry of birdlife which in total includes about 100 species.
Published in Bandicoot Times, journal of the City of Hobart Bushcare group, Autumn 2024