WITH DON KNOWLER

The common koel, a species of cuckoo, acted as my barometer when I lived in Far North Queensland. The koel’s plaintive, far-carrying call coincides with the arrival of the rainy season in tropical Australia at the end of winter, and so the bird is given the nickname “rain bird”.

My barometer in Tasmania, however, is another bird usually associated with the tropics, the satin flycatcher (pictured).

It’s got nothing to do with rain – we get that all year in Tasmania. The arrival of the flycatcher, and the first hearing of its repetitive song and scratchy contact call, indicates summer has finally arrived.

It’s the final piece of the migrant jigsaw to fall into place, the last bird of summer to hit our shores.

In the past two years, however, the flycatcher has heralded not sun, but snow. The bird’s arrival has brought with it blizzards. At the time I heard the flycatcher song this year and last, snow lay thick on kunanyi/Mt Wellington, and this year the road to the summit was closed.

The flycatcher’s arrival last month was particularly bizarre. After hearing its call, I became worried how this insect-eater would fare in this unseasonal Tasmanian “winter”. But the bird didn’t have to wait long for the weather to clear. The next few days brought a heatwave, with the temperature on one day topping 32C.

The satin flycatcher is possibly the most beautiful of the birds to either be resident here or visit in summer. Its plumage is painted in the shimmering hue of midnight blue on the head and back, with a silver underside. The female has a brown-grey head and back, instead of the blue, and a slash of chestnut feathers on the upper breast.

Sometimes I don’t find flycatchers at all in the Waterworks Reserve in South Hobart where I monitor the seasons, but I’m happy to report this year they are plentiful – come rain or shine, and even blizzard.