Australia is an ornithological terra nullius - an ‘empty land' - It is unforgivable that the most complete references to Australian Aboriginal ornithology are found in John Gould's Handbook to the Birds of Australia, 1865 - published 138 years ago.
I first saw the Wedge-tails free-flying at the Alice Springs Desert Park years ago and have been aware of the often violent interactions between the two captive birds and a pair of wild local Wedge-tails. Now the captive birds have been released.
For too long, western scientists have either willfully ignored indigenous knowledge of Australia's birds or damned it as ‘unscientific'. How we access and record what people know of and how they use birds, and the value of indigenous bird knowledge are important tools for species and landscape management.
Kala tiya-tiya ngulaji kalu-jana ngarrirni yapa yangka Jardiwanpaku wiri kujakarla nyinami yapa, ngularlangu tiya-tiyaji yapa wiri. Kula jurlpu-mipa yirdiji tiya-tiyaji, kala yangka yapa wiri jujuku-ngarduyu.
Collared Sparrowhawk Accipiter cirrhocephalus This glorious—though somewhat glum-looking—Collared Sparrowhawk, Accipiter cirrhocephalus, has been hanging around my back yard over the past few weeks – most likely lured in by the Zebra Finches, small Honeyeaters and other birds that crowd in for the water in the backyard. Here he, and I’m pretty sure it is a [...]
This bird – I’m sorry but I can’t even identify it to species level – it is either a Torresian Crow (Corvus orru) or a Little Crow (Corvus bennetti) which are the only two Crows found in this part of central Australia, was hanging around the house here at Yuendumu for a few [...]
Greg Combet, member for Charlton in the Federal Parliament, the hard man of the Patrick’s wharf dispute…and of course much more, is apparently a big softy at heart – he breeds, and has special places in his heart for, birds. I had a vague memory of Greg’s name being mentioned in relation to birds a [...]
The drive that gripped Alan that stormy night in the Himalayas can carry us into all sorts of situations. Most of the time the stories engendered add to the great canon of harmless eccentricities. But in some instances the birder's drive can lead to dreadful tragedy.
I first came across this story a few weeks ago at the 12th Pan-African Ornithological Congress outside of Cape Town in South Africa where Professor Peter Ryan of the University of Cape Town referred to it in a plenary speech. I note that it has received some early attention elsewhere but that there [...]
Scores of Buddhist villagers in India's north-eastern state of Assam have performed a unique funeral ritual for more than 800 endangered storks that died after a tree where they were nesting fell ... The villagers, most of them farmers, considered the banyan tree sacred and believed that the storks were their guardian angels.
