Was Santa Claus a Sami shaman?

There’s something of a children’s fantasy novel in the idea of a red-clad Santa riding the night-dark skies on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, and not only getting around the world in a single night, but visiting the homes of all children and leaving them gifts. Long ago, someone convinced me that contemporary Santa …

Minjerriba a little heaven

I love Minjerriba (North Stradbroke Island), a sand island that forms part of the bay of Quandamooka (Moreton Bay). It’s a piece of heaven. I visit when I can. It’s two hours by public transport (shank’s pony, train, bus, ferry, bus) from my front door to the rocky north-eastern tip, Point Lookout. For me, it’s always a …

A world history in a graphic panel

I swung open the door to enter the library and was stopped by the tranquil quiet, and the warm smell of rag paper, wood and leather. In front of me, centuries-old books were neatly arranged by category on wooden bookshelves that glowed under the application of generations of furniture wax. Some of the books were …

La jícara

The jícara is a Maya ceremonial cup formed from a tree gourd. The goddesses created it in the place they met. It was dark, so they lit a candle to provide light, placing the candle in the centre of a bowl formed from splitting in half the gourd of the tree known as el jícaro. …

Anyone who hasn’t been in the Chilean forest doesn’t know this planet

Under the volcanoes, beside the snow-capped mountains, among the huge lakes, the fragrant, the silent, the tangled Chilean forest … My feet sink down into the dead leaves, a fragile twig crackles, the giant rauli trees rise in all their bristling height, a bird from the cold jungle passes over, flaps its wings, and stops …

The tawny frogmouth is a gentle bird – but beware its nastiest defence

What a treat to see a family of tawny frogmouths when we were camping last weekend. This is the first time I’ve seen more than one at a time. They were camped in a tree for the day. All four of them kept an eye on the humans passing beneath their perch. The adults, without …

The humble ‘bin chicken’ deserves respect

I didn’t see any Australian white ibises in my garden during the recent bird count (where it came it at number 13), but I do see them around a lot. Although this common ibis (Threskiornis molucca) comes in for a lot of what I hope is good-natured chiacking, I’m rather fond of it. It used …

The power of citizen science: 77,000 people count nearly 3 million birds in Aussie Backyard Bird Count

Birdlife Australia has released figures for the Aussie Backyard Bird Count held in late October—and it’s an impressive amount of counting. For the fifth year in a row, the rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) topped the charts. I was glad to see it was twice as numerous as the next bird, the pesky noisy miner (Manorina …

Counting birds had me appreciating my garden more

This was the week of the Aussie Backyard Bird Count. Thousands of people around the country became temporary citizen scientists when they paused for 20 minutes each day this week to count all the birds they could see. There’s an app (of course) to record each species and the numbers of that species that you …

Beautiful building exteriors of rural Colombia

In some of the rural towns of the Cordillera Central of Colombia, people paint wall, door and window trims in a carnival of colours. They uplift homes and hostels, shops, and cafes and restaurants. It’s a joy to walk the streets and happen across colour arrangements so imaginative and carefree they could be inspired by …