Bird of the week – Chukar
Chukar is the national bird of Pakistan and the name is derived from Chakhoor in Urdu. In Indian mythology, the bird is said to be in love with the moon and to look at it constantly.
Australia’s shame – the Timor Sea oil spill disaster in pictures
This is a disaster of not only local, but regional and international proportions. The impending arrival of the seasonal monsoonal cycle in the coming months will substantially change the nature and location of the impact of this massive spill.
Roadkill of the week: life & death in the Pacific Garbage Patch
Not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries.
Morning chorus at Rocky Bottom Creek
The first five notes of the Pied Butchebird's call reminded me very much of "La Cucaracha"...
Bird of the week: Mindjarru & Bigibila, a Yuwaalaraay story by Arthur Dodd
This is a story of the Weebill, the Emu, the Porcupine (Echidna) and some Meat Ants and how the Echidna got it's spines. The story was told by Arthur Dodd, a Yuwaalaraay speaker from the central north-west of New South wales around Walgett.
Good light, and birds, in Broome…
After spending a long time in the desert's too-harsh-between-10am-and-3pm light it is a relief on the eyes to get into some comparatively soft northern lights, though of course the heat and humidity of a September build-up does always take some getting used to.
Roadkill of the week – Yinkardakurdaku, Spotted Nightjar
To me the call of the Yinkardakurdaku sounds like water flowing out of a narrow-necked bottle, a beautiful succession of fluid sounds ending in an almost joyous, crazy climax.
Song poetry about birds from the Pilbara
I’m sitting here in the “Balgo Hilton” waiting for someone to come back from where I’ve just been. We most likely passed each other on the road sometime yesterday as I struggled up the 530 kilometres of the torture that is known as the Tanami Track from Yuendumu up here to Wirrimanu – formerly known [...]
Sniffing around at the shit-pits: watching birds at the Alice Springs Waste Stabilisation Ponds
Birds, and birders, love shit. Or more particularly in Alice Springs, they both love the fact that in the driest part of the driest continent that the average daily household use of water is a profligate 1,500 litres a day.
Life and art in the sky, Part 1 – the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa of Alma Nungarrayi Granites
If you are in Alice Springs this weekend you can do a lot worse than go along to the Aralauen Arts Centre and catch the Desert Mob show that will be opening there Sunday - you might be lucky and see one of Nungarrayi's paintings in the exhibition.