Dancing on the Edge of the World
Everyone has a story about birds. They are all about us and are our contact point with nature. The birds I see are usually in an urban environment and so I concentrate on these in my writing. I don’t pretend to be an expert but birds of the city and suburb are also the ones that most people identify with, the species you do not need a compass and binoculars to seek out. A scarlet robin singing in a garden is just as exciting as a swift parrot in an ancient forest and is worth just as many words in my On the Wing writings, which appear weekly in the Sunday Tasmanian.
By Don Knowler
A pair of French “twitchers” happily photographing a tawny frogmouth in the Waterworks Reserve gave weight to a news item I had just read reporting that birdwatching tourism was pumping billions of dollars into the Australian economy. Usually the wave of international birders comes in spring and … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The black-headed honeyeaters are back. All winter I’ve been hearing their “peep-peep” call after they fell silent in recent years. Once they had provided the background sound of my garden, the song also accompanying me along the routes of my favourite walks on the lower slopes of kunanyi/Mt … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Tigers, lions and a gorilla named Guy. There was much to hold a schoolboy spellbound in the London Zoo. The schoolboy’s focus, though, was firmly on a curious goose, grey in feather with a striking green patch of bare skin on its beak. The label attached to the wire of the wildfowl aviary revealed … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
United States President Donald Trump might describe climate change as a “hoax” but rising temperatures are certainly having an impact on the environment across the world, including in Tasmania. Tropical fish not usually found this far south are turning up in Tasmanian waters, little penguins are … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Sometimes I think I am totally out of step with the modern world. Was I the only one to see the ballerina of the bay, a beautiful great white egret pirouetting in the still waters of the Derwent one autumnal morning? Out of step but in-step all the same, joining the walkers along the foreshore of … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The City of Clarence is showcasing its wildlife treasures with a pamphlet designed to cash in on the growing popularly of birdwatching. The publication reveals nine of the 12 Tasmanian endemic bird species can be seen in the municipality but for me Clarence has two special species which several … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
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