Dingoes, Wild Dogs, and the Australian Dog Fence

When European settlers herded the first flocks of sheep onto Australian grasslands, they encountered a predator that quickly caught on to the fact that the woolly beasts made a good meal.1 That predat...

Ruminations on the Tropics

Two huge paperbark trees on my street are in blossom, pumping out waves of ‘boiled-potato’ fragrance and attracting hordes of nectarivorous (nectar-feeding) rainbow lorikeets. The lorikeet...

Needing a Python

I need a python. A big one. And a wild one. I want it to assume residence on my roof and eat every possum within sight or smell so I can sleep. The past few nights in our rental house have been like l...

Kookaburras – Voices of Dawn and a Nation

Hid by tattered shreds of night, laughing kookaburras regaled the coming dawn with maniacal chortles and guffaws masquerading as territorial vocalizations. In the wildness of their sounds, I heard com...