WITH DON KNOWLER
The birds were scurrying for cover as a cold blast roared in from the southwest, rain falling in diagonal grey stripes from behind kunanyi/Mt Wellington.
Among them I was surprised to see a striated pardalote, a summer migrant who should have been well on the way to Bass Strait, and beyond, by early autumn.
If the tiny pardalote had been in any doubt about the time to leave, the threat of snow on the high country would have finally spurred he or she on their way.
A pardalote so late in the season was not the only surprise. Scanning the shrubs and trees on one of my favourite walks, the first part of the Lenah Valley Track out of The Springs to Sphinx Rock, I caught sight of two juvenile scarlet robins.
The robins are common on the higher slopes of the mountain in spring and summer, where pairs establish breeding territories, but when the weather turns colder in autumn they return to warmer wintering habit nearer the coast.
In autumn, beyond recording the departures of the summer visitors, I also take stock of what young have been produced during the year. It’s always reassuring to see young birds on the wing, with the promise they will become parents themselves and keep the avian showcase alive and kicking for the next season.
And here were two young scarlet robins and, more importantly, young of different ages. They were from two broods, probably from the same pair of successful breeders.
The flame robins (pictured) are also familiar to me from this section of track because I have monitored them for many years. They even feature in my book, The Shy Mountain, in which I described their efforts one season to avoid the attentions of fan-tailed cuckoos, which use the robins as surrogate parents along with other species.
The juvenile scarlet robins, dropping from perches to feed on insects, were independent of their parents, but some young were still relying on their parents.
A travelling party of silvereyes, like the pardalotes making a late departure for the mainland, made their way north around the escarpment forming Sphinx Rock, finding insects in clumps of blanketbush as they went. The adults had juveniles with them, the young birds in scruffy brown plumage and still to gain the distinctive russet flanks that separates Tassie silvereyes from those of the southwest mainland in their winter grounds of southern Queensland.
And the young of non-migrants were out and about, too. A male and female yellow-tailed black cockatoo, with a youngster in tow, flew over my head before alighting in the upper branches of gum-topped stringybark.
Yet another young bird on the wing, to join the flock of myriad species that grace our woods, forests, and paddocks, in all seasons. I watch in wonder, feeling a part of it all.