Two Serendipitous Finds

Again, possum racket woke me in the night, and I wondered, Where is that python when we need it? The dawn air was soupy, the sun’s incipient rising a faint coral smear in the east.  Members of the ...

A Bower, Black Saturday, and Black Flying Foxes

Early this morning, I rose from sleep and headed to the Ross River Parkway for a bash of birding, the highlight of which was sighting a great bowerbird – fawn-coloured with a brown, grey-scalloped d...

Brushtail Possum and the 2009 Australian Word of the Year

At dawn in the Ross River Parkway, white ibises were dim shapes feeding in sporadic drizzle, their black beaks shadowed curves. A sulphur-crested cockatoo squealed like an avian pig as it cruised low ...

Castle Hill, The Strand, Cane Toads, Snakes, and Devil Facial Tumour Disease

This morning at breakfast, Vilis told me, “Last night, I killed a cockroach in the living room.” I asked him how big it was, so he indicated a length of about three inches and told me, “They...