Veronika Wild

Meet the Short -Tailed Shearwater, a smallish bird which travels 30,000 km a year from Southern Australian waters to Kamchatka in Russia and the Aleutian Islands and back via the Pacific Coast of North America   -Photo Ed Dunens  |  by CC 2 .0    |  per Wikicommons] These are the kinds of birds we mean when we celebrate World Migratory Bird Day this Saturday (10/10/2020). In the Northern hemisphere, you may have celebrated the same day on May 9 and even some of the same birds, because the movement of these birds depends on the seasons. In this case we‘re mainly talking about those which use the East Asian – Australasian Flyway which brings around two million birds to our shores each spring.  Many of them perform the most remarkable feats to get here. The tiny Arctic Tern for instance, weighing only 113 grams (4 ounces), travels a 71,000 km in zig zag route between Greenland and Antarctica.  The speed record holder is the Bar – Tailed Godwit w...

    Lest the foregoing posts make it seem that everything in WA is old and or abandoned, but that is most definitely not the case. The City of Perth is compact but has all the attributes of a modern city -gleaming towers that reflect the blue of the skies, lovely river front parklands, one of the oldest universities in Australia, trendy shops and eateries, world class entertainment and a zoo, but except for its bell tower, there is little to distinguish it from anywhere else.  There are your Maccas, and Targets and all the other retail chains. All very handy when you need them, but a bit bloody boring to look at when they all look the same. I am looking for those things which make a place different. Much the same can be said for the housing.   The whole of Perth - indeed much of Western Australia, seems to be in the middle of a housing boom By far the majority of the population appears to be living in endless new subdivisions springing up north and south along the...