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
The gentle stare, the silent watch of a tawny frogmouth carried the message that autumn was on the way. The temperature may have hit 22 degrees, the hot sun casting dappled shadows over the Waterworks Reserve, but the frogmouth just knew. It was the same last year. At the height of summer, the … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The snowy owl of Harry Potter fame is flying towards extinction. The worldwide birding organisation, Birdlife International, has revealed that the beautiful all-white owl is rapidly declining in the colder regions of the northern hemisphere. It has already been declared extinct in Sweden. Although … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
A panorama of fluffy white clouds spread out before me as I drove north across the wide expanse of the Midlands. I was transfixed and had to pull to the side of the road, for fear of veering off course. Usually on that road I keep a look-out for wedge-tailed eagles which I always seem to spot out … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Friday the 13th might be an ominous signal of bad luck but for one of my readers it was a day of pure joy. A pair of grey fantails nesting in her garden – in fact metres from her backdoor – produced two chicks, which went on to grace her property in Sandy Bay with elegant, shuttlecock flight. This … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
The Tasmanian native-hens in my garden had been displaying the amorous side to their nature all night. Their mating ritual had started at midnight and the strangely rhythmic grunts and squawks finished at around 7am, just as the sun flooded the Waterworks Valley with light. The antics of the … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
By Don Knowler
Highway patrol officers in a town in Switzerland reeled in shock when they studied radar images of speedsters – among the pictures of the local hot-rod hoons was a duck. The mallard was caught travelling 52 km/h in a 30 km/h zone and what’s worse – the bird was believed to be a repeat offender. It … [Read More...]
Filed Under: On The Wing
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