What a wonderful, successful weekend!
How to thank everyone involved in the fantastic 2026 Bird Festival?
Held in perfect weather, it went off smoothly, largely due to the untiring coordinator, the fabulous Jess Ewing, volunteer coordinator Sue Wragge and the three partners: BirdLife Tasmania, Inala and BIEN.
Bird tours – the heart of the festival – spanned Dennes Hill right down to the Lighthouse, with people reporting ‘the best day of my life’; ’40spots dripping out of the trees’; ‘I’ll definitely be back for the next one‘! Inala guides and BirdLife members, as always, led the charge in the birding tours.
Workshops included sculpture, building your own bird call recorder, bird photography and a crowd favourite – dissecting an eagle to learn about its life and death.
Fascinating talks featured the award-winning Tim Low explaining how Australia was the heart of global bird evolution (his book “Where Song Began” is definitely worth a read); Cat Davidson exploring the nano-technology of eggs; weetapoonah rangers giving an in-depth insight into their land management and culture and the ever-wonderful Claire Boost awarding the Nature Stories Prize to Bruny school kids (you’ll hear more about that soon!).
Two feasts were held – the first a BBQ plus CWA cakes and Hopfield’s beers with the Festival launch by indigenous elder Aunty Jan and the second, a culinary tour-de-force led by Kerstein Trueman and her sister-cousins featuring bush flavours and set on marvellously decorated long tables. And there was food and charms aplenty at the Nature Market at Lunawanna.
Marg and Bob Graham – founders of both the Bird Festival and indeed BIEN itself – were honoured with a gorgeous bird sculpture and bouquet, and a beautiful speech by Cat.
Some 40 volunteers ran tours, cooked and served food and drinks, set up and pulled down the facilities, ensured audio-visual support, cleaned and tidied – how can we thank you all, apart from just saying THANK YOU and we really appreciate your generosity of time and good humour!
Can’t wait until the next one in 2028…
