Tasmania's 12 Endemic Birds

I have something I am supposed to be doing today. I feel so much NOT like doing it that I have just whistled up a project from nowhere to fill in some time. One bird half done, 11 and a half to go.

My other job is sticking 8 boxes on a board. I have done 5.

Further thoughts from aboard a tuna boat

[Some more about yesterday's fishing expedition.]

We were out there for such a long time, with so little action, that after a while I was just staring into space. It was not a large boat - you had to find somewhere comparatively comfortable to lean and just settle in there.

The basalt stacks of the coastline are pretty amazing. Tasman Island has an unbelievable timber platform perched above the rocks, with an almost-vertical tramway up which supplies were winched to the now-decommissioned lighthouse.

We couldn't see the top of the island yesterday due to sea fog. Wikipedia to the rescue.

How did they ever get anything onto the platform?

Interesting and beautiful as all of this is, I was finding it less novel after about six hours of circling around. At least I wasn't leaning over the rail the whole time like Dan. It must have seemed like an eternity to him, as he couldn't even see where we were going. I started to think about eternity too.

The rocks are being bashed constantly by the sea. I understand the "constantly" part a lot better now. Every day, all night, no breaks for weekends - down here it just doesn't stop. It's been happening for hundreds of thousands of years, and will keep happening no matter what. It's happening now.

I thought about how I would go living on one of the islands. I'd be eating a lot of raw seabird eggs, I decided. The birdlife all around was very varied. Gulls and albatrosses and terns and ... prions? The albatrosses could glide into view, glide about just above the waves until your neck got stiff and your eyes hurt from watching, then glide off around behind the boat and out of view, all without a flap. Incredibly efficient. Smaller birds were flapping like nobodies' business - they must have to eat a lot more than the albatross I suppose. But not too much at once - then you can't fly. A tricky business. I love how seabird eggs are the pointiest, so that if they roll, they roll in a circle and not off the rocky ledge.

We saw a lot of basking seals on the rocks, but more fascinating were the ones in the water. In pounding waves that would have drowned me in a few minutes, the seals attitude was more akin to a Tuesday night in the lounge room, with not much on the telly. Idly rolling and lolling, waving a flipper here and a tail there. Just hanging out in the 3-4 metre swell. "Hi, humans! Catching any tuna? No? We've got heaps!! Hahahahahaha!! BRAAAAAAAP."

South Hobart this morning

We have had a solo raven visiting our area a lot lately. He has some quite odd behaviour, and we think he might be injured. He sat on our front verandah for quite a while, guzzled water, and sat with his beak open facing into the wind. This morning he hopped onto Andrew and Sharyn's tin roof next door and trotted up and down - tink tank tink tank tink tank - for a while. The boys came out to look and I took the opportunity to snap them, as they haven't been in the blog for a while.


The magpie family have been regular visitors all summer. The baby is still cheeping maniacally, but is able to feed itself now.

Important List! #05

Drongos. As requested by M.D. Lean of Surrey Hills, Vic, I have made one up. Spot it - if you DARE! Note - some drongos have been omitted from this list as a) I'm not sure that they really belong to the drongo family, taxonomically speaking and b)their names are not fun enough.

Bronzed Drongo, Dicrurus aeneus
Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, Dicrurus remifer
Pygmy Drongo, Chaetorhynchus papuensis
Splendid Drongo, Dicrurus splendidus
Square-tailed Drongo, Dicrurus ludwigii
Shining Drongo, Dicrurus atripennis
Fork-tailed Drongo, Dicrurus adsimilis
Black Drongo, Dicrurus macrocercus
Ashy Drongo, Dicrurus leucophaeus
White-bellied Drongo, Dicrurus caerulescens
Crow-billed Drongo, Dicrurus annectans
Hair-crested Drongo, Dicrurus hottentottus
Sulawesi Drongo, Dicrurus montanus
Sumatran Drongo, Dicrurus sumatranus
Wallacean Drongo, Dicrurus densus
Ribbon-tailed Drongo, Dicrurus megarhynchus
Spangled Drongo, Dicrurus bracteatus
Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Dicrurus paradiseus

More bird news

A sparrow or somesuch flew across my path this morning with about a metre of straw hanging from its beak. Up into the eaves of Le Provençal restaurant, there to extend/repair his nest I guess. Organic gardening must be such a boon to the nest-building bird-about-town.

Bird Hand Book

Photos of live birds, in the hands of ornithologists. Very, very beautiful and rather startling. © Victor Schrager.

Bird Calls

Yellow-tailed black cockatoo plaintive plee-erk
Latham's snipe loud keow
Long-toed stint soft chrrup-chrrup-chrrup
Whimbrel tittering ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti
White-cheeked honeyeater chip choo chippy choo
White-eared honeyeater loud chock
White-fronted honeyeater musical tsooeee
White-gaped honeyeater ch ch ch-aweya or chock
White-lined honeyeater wheee wheee whee-oo
White-naped honeyeater sibilant sherp sherp
White-plumed honeyeater chee uck oo weee
White-streaked honeyeater troop drid-out drid-out drid-out
White-throated honeyeater rather peevish tserp tserp
Carpentarian grasswren ssst, ssstz, seeze-ooo chrr chreee, trrr trrrr, chrrrp chrrrp chuck, chrrrp chrrrp chick will

From Slater's Australian Birds. Coming soon - Bird's Australian Slaters