

Wildlife Matters: Those wretched magpies
When I was a small child I had to walk by myself about a mile along a country road to get to school. "It's not fair!" I blurted out, with the truculence of a five year old. "You'll be all right," said my mother who remembered that when she had been my age she had had to drive a horse and sulky six miles to reach her school. But I was not convinced. Perhaps the biggest hazard on the way to school were the magpies and it was not I who bore the brunt of their attacks, but my lit


Barrington Tops NP: The curious behaviour of tree martins
A strange thing happened during our trip to Barrington Tops. We had just set up our tents on the banks of the Barrington River, and were standing under Pete's tarpaulin discussing the possibility of making a cup of tea, when a whole flock of tiny birds settled on the fireplace a couple of metres away, seemingly undisturbed by our presence. I moved back to grab my camera and Laura moved forward to get hers from her tent, but as quickly as they had come the whole flock departed


Pastel painting: Pademelon in the undergrowth
Laura and I spent some time one morning during our recent camping trip to D"Aguilar National Park, taking photos of this young red-legged pademelon in the undergrowth. This was my first chance during the trip to photograph a pademelon since I had somehow missed all the other golden opportunities that Joe and Laura had taken advantage of, (probably because I was too busy trying to get shots of scarlet honeyeaters in the callistemons along the creek). The pademelons around the