Every year in the spring, Australians celebrate National Bird Week by taking part in a huge citizen science project. For one week in October, Australians count the birds they see in their backyards, parks, and open spaces across the country.
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I participated this year in the sixth annual Aussie Backyard Bird Count, submitting checklists via a phone app of the birds I saw in 20-minute increments from stationary locations.  

I was not alone: More than 88,000 people participated, with the numbers of schools that took part growing to more than 1,000 this year.
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The results are in, and a total of 3,381 768 birds were counted. The graphic below summarizes the results and lists the birds most commonly seen in Australia 

The rainbow lorikeet took the top spot for the second year in a row, which I found troubling for several reasons, but that bird is nothing if not tenacious and adaptable.

The data is important because it’s a snapshot of yearly trends affecting the environment. Birds give an early indication when something’s wrong—think of canaries in a coal mine.

This year, a new bird reached the top ten most commonly seen species: the white ibis. The white ibis is a dry country bird, and thousands more were spotted in wetter urban areas near the coast. The data indicates that the continued drought continues to affect birds like the ibis, and they are adapting by moving to areas they aren’t normally found.
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I’m glad I did my small part in this massive citizen science project that contributes more to what we know about Australia’s birds.

On morning walks, I often wonder what the world looks like to our dog Milo. Many experts on canines, including Alexandra Horowitz, recommend taking a walk in your dog’s footsteps and imagining what he sees, smells, and experiences. I call these stop-and-sniff walks, and I’ve started doing them whenever I have enough time in the morning to let Milo set the pace.

I have some ground rules: no more than one hour spent outside, and I follow Milo’s lead—within reason. That means no unsafe terrain where snakes might lurk (rock piles, tall grass) and no trespassing on someone’s private property. Here’s what I’ve learned from our stop-and-sniff walks.

We amble, we circle, we meander. We are almost never on a path, or at least, not a path that I recognize. I believe these twisty, turning trails follow the rabbits and kangaroos.

We never wander all that far. Most of the time, we’re no more than two-tenths of a mile from home. Who knew that Milo, like Thoreau, believes in the value of discovering all the possibilities of a single patch of ground rather than exploring the entire world?

That patch contains multitudes. When I looked at the ground rather than up at the sky, I saw all kinds of fascinating things. ​

Rather than approaching kangaroos gradually from a distance, we happen on them unexpectedly, in the cool shadows of trees. 

​On these walks, I learned to look down and appreciate what I saw. I learned to use my ears and my nose, not just my eyes. I learned to cultivate patience. After all, there’s always time to chew a stick.

I knew how valuable these stop-and-sniff walks would be for Milo, but what I didn’t know was how good they would be for me too.

The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was a large carnivorous marsupial that carried its young in a pouch. Fossils and cave paintings show that it once lived all over Australia. Thylacines didn’t survive on the mainland, dying out about 3,000 years ago. Scientists speculate that pressure from dingos, a type of wild dog, may have been a factor, along with a dryer climate and less vegetation. By the time Europeans arrived in Australia, thylacines were found only on the island of Tasmania, where they lived in the eucalypt forests and coastal lands. Early settlers called them Tasmanian tigers because of their dark stripes. Thylacines hunted at night and ate possums, other marsupials, rodents, and small birds.

In 1863, naturalist John Gould predicted that more people and more development would be the end of the Tasmanian tiger. He was right.

Settlers targeted the animal, believing that thylacines killed sheep. The Tasmanian Government paid a bounty on every thylacine killed between 1830 and 1909. More than 2,000 were slaughtered, and the species never recovered. 

What thylacines remained were kept in captivity, and the last one died in 1936 at a zoo in Hobart. In the wild, the animal was officially designated extinct in 1986 after years of fruitless searches.

​This display at the National Museum of Australia, and others like it, are most likely all that's left of the Tasmanian tiger. 

That dismal thought doesn't stop people from trying to find them though. In Tasmania, there are still eight to ten sightings reported every year, but no convincing proof. And if Tasmanian tigers can't be found, maybe they can be brought back to life. Progress has been made in attempts to clone the thylacine.
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As I walked away from the thylacine exhibit, I hoped it wasn’t a portent for the future. Australia leads the world in extinction rates, with 29 species lost since colonial times. I wonder what the chances are that one or more of the animals I see every day will end up in a display like this.

When I first arrived in Australia, I saw this animal in a nature reserve. 

Ah, I thought—a kangaroo. Nope. I found out it was actually a wallaby, and many newcomers have a hard time identifying them.

To be fair, kangaroos and wallabies are similar. They both belong to the family Macropodinae (named for their characteristic big feet). Both are marsupials. Like kangaroos, wallaby mothers have short pregnancies. When the babies are born, they climb into the mother’s pouch and attach to a nipple until they finish developing.

Also like kangaroos, wallabies are herbivores that are most active at dawn and dusk.

Now for the differences: wallabies are smaller, typically the size of a medium dog. Depending on the type of wallaby, they can weigh anywhere from 4 to 53 pounds.

The teeth of a wallaby are different as well. A kangaroo’s teeth are designed for cutting through tall grass. A wallaby has a much wider diet, browsing on both shrubs and grasses. Its teeth are made more for crunching and grinding.

Here are five fast facts about wallabies:

​As I discovered, wallabies are not miniature kangaroos. At least now when I stumble upon them on one of my walks, I know how to greet them properly.

Some of the world’s oldest trees stand on a hillside in the National Arboretum in Canberra, overlooking mountains and the lake below.

These trees are called Wollemi pines, and a long time ago, they were all over Australia. Fossil evidence reveals that they go back 100 million to 200 million years. Dinosaur fossils have been found in Australia from around that same time, leading paleontologists to believe that some dinosaurs may have eaten Wollemi leaves. As the continent became dryer, the trees died out; they were thought to have gone extinct along with the dinosaurs.

But then in 1994, a national park worker discovered a small stand of Wollemi pine in a rain forest gorge in the Blue Mountains, not far from Sydney. A massive conservation effort began, with seedlings sent around the world. Some ended up in Canberra.

Despite the tiny population in the wild, the tree is hearty. It can grow on exposed rock slopes and withstand temperatures ranging from 23 degrees Fahrenheit to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. The seedlings have matured, producing viable seeds of their own. Some Wollemi pines produce female cones, while others produce male cones, and some trees produce both.

People across the world can order a prehistoric pine of their own, to help this ancient tree survive. 

We don’t normally have white winters where I live in Australia, although snow has been part of our forecast this year. Still, I searched the nearby wetlands in this last bit of winter to see what white I could find.

No snow on the landscape, but clouds and trees and a ghostly moon contributed some winter white.

Birds provided some fleeting white splashes.

​And humans have made their own additions.

​While my home in Australia may not have the snowy seasons of my childhood, I can still find lots of winter white if I look.

Australia is known for its parrots. Of the more than 300 different species of parrots around the world, Australia has 56 of them, not counting sub-species. Twenty minutes north of Canberra’s city center is a spot to get up close and personal to many of Australia’s parrots: the Canberra Walk-in Aviary

Planted with suitable habitat for birds, this privately-owned aviary stretches over 3300 square feet and up nearly 30 feet high. It houses around 500 birds from 55 species, including more than 20 types of parrots.

​The admission price includes a plate of apple slices and a bowl of live meal worms. The birds flock to visitors (and more importantly, to the food they’re carrying). It is not the place for people who are squeamish about birds perching on them. One determined bird landed on me repeatedly, running his beak through my hair, as if grooming me.  

I made the acquaintance of the lorikeets, particularly the rainbow type. These small parrots are cheeky, social, and persistent. Although they are often a pest in the wild, there is no denying their charm here.

These lorikeets figured early in Australia's history: a rainbow lorikeet was the first parrot to travel back to England with Captain Cook.

I thoroughly enjoyed my morning here and look forward to the next time. I’ll return with a better zoom—the camera loves these birds. 

My thumb is the opposite of green. I can kill any houseplant, failing to keep even ivy or kitchen herbs alive. Imagine my boundless admiration when I visited the National Bonsai and Penjing Collection of Australia and saw what a combination of artistry and patience can do.

Bonsai is the art of growing miniature trees in pots, and it started around sixth century AD in Japan. Penjing means “pot scenery” in Chinese and goes back to the first dynasty of imperial China (around 221 BC to 220 AD). While the oldest bonsai and penjing are more than 1200 years old, this impressive collection is not that ancient. The oldest tree here dates to 1880.

About 80 trees are usually on display, and all the Australian or exotic trees have been donated or loaned by artists and their families or friends. The trees have been lovingly sculpted over time to create natural landscapes that evoke calm and tranquility. 

​Volunteers knit scarves for some of the trees, to keep them warm in Canberra’s chilly winters.

This lovely collection is located at the National Arboretum Canberra, and the website includes a 3D tour. 

The Birds of Australia—a massive seven-volume work published between 1840 to 1848 and one of the most influential books about Australian birds—contains stunning illustrations by a woman named Elizabeth Gould … but you’d never know it. Her name doesn’t appear on the title page. The individual plates are credited only to “J & E Gould.” The “J” is John Gould, Elizabeth’s husband, a taxidermist and ornithologist. The book’s author, he took credit for each illustration, even though the work was his wife’s. She was reduced to an initial.

Born into a military family in England in 1804, Elizabeth was probably taught to draw and paint, skills that were expected of middle- and upper-class women of the time. At 22, she was working (unhappily) as a governess. Her brother, a taxidermist, introduced her to one of his colleagues, John Gould. They married in 1829 when they were both 24.

John wanted to write a book about birds from the Himalayas and informed a no-doubt-surprised Elizabeth that she would do all the drawings, paintings, and lithographs. She taught herself the new art of lithography while pregnant with their first child. Elizabeth designed and illustrated 80 lithographs of 100 bird species, all hand colored.

When the book was published, John listed only himself on the title page. In the preface, John noted her “well-known abilities” in “delineating these birds.” Although Elizabeth didn’t sign any of her artwork, each plate bears a small credit: “Drawn from nature on stone by E. Gould.” The book was a huge success, leading to another project on the birds of Europe.

Over the next five years, Elizabeth worked on the illustrations and created 448 plates for the book. She also gave birth to five more children, but only three survived.
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During this time, Charles Darwin brought back bird specimens from the Galapagos Islands, and Elizabeth created the illustrations to go with John’s text about the birds. One of these was of the famous Galapagos finches, referred to in Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Elizabeth’s name didn’t appear on any of the illustrations. 

Again, when Birds of Europe was published, Elizabeth’s name was not on the title page. Worse, each illustration now had John’s initials along with Elizabeth’s. He often claimed that she contributed only the lithographs, while he was responsible for the original art. Both contemporary sources and documentary evidence of the original sketches confirms his assertion was untrue.

With another successful book, John now wanted to tackle Australian birds. Elizabeth’s brothers both had farms in New South Wales, so the Goulds could base themselves there for the new project.

Elizabeth didn’t want to travel to Australia. The Goulds had four surviving children, and the plan was to take their oldest son (age seven) with them, leaving the three youngest children with Elizabeth’s mother. The idea of leaving behind her youngest child Louisa (only six months old) was extremely distressing, and Elizabeth nearly didn’t go. However, John insisted, so they traveled to Australia in 1838.

In her letters to her mother and diaries, she didn’t talk about her art. She missed her children and mother and was frustrated by the separation. She stayed busy, working on hundreds of drawings and paintings and learning about native plants as well as the birds. She worried about how many bird specimens her husband was collecting, calling him “a great enemy of the feathered tribe,” and wrote to her mother: “I hope he leaves some of the birds in the skies.”
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As a zoological artist, Elizabeth faced real challenges in the days before photography. Bird specimens to draw from were collected, killed, and stuffed. The resulting illustration was often stilted and unnatural, a style referred to now as “birds on a stick.” Their time in Australia allowed Elizabeth to observe and draw birds in their native habitat. Her art had to be scientifically accurate, lifelike, and beautiful—she achieved all three. 

​Elizabeth spent a little more than two years in Australia, returning to England in 1840. A year later, she died of puerperal fever after giving birth for the eighth time. Another artist had to finish the lithography from her drawings and paintings.

While John Gould never put her name on the title page of any of their books, he did name an Australian bird to memorialize Elizabeth, calling it the Gouldian Finch. He noted that his late wife had “laboriously assisted me with her pencil, accompanied me to Australia, and cheerfully interested herself in all my pursuits.” Ironically, even though he named the bird in honor of Elizabeth, he used only his surname.

​Today, although her husband is still sometimes credited for her work, Elizabeth’s enormous contributions are becoming better known through Her Natural History campaign, related presentations, and a novel written about her. The enormous breadth of her work can be seen in various archives, including this one of her lithographs, thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. 

​On my very first day in Australia, I spotted these odd pink and gray birds. They strolled along in a side-to-side gait that wasn’t quite a waddle, often in twos, feeding from the ground. They were far from graceful—until they took to the air. These mystery birds turned out to be strong, swift flyers.
 
The birds were galahs, a type of cockatoo, and I’ve seen them nearly every day since. Galahs are one of Australia’s most common birds. The name “galah” comes from the indigenous Yuwaalaraay language of northern New South Wales. The word has also become Australian slang for a fool or idiot, perhaps because Australians have perceived the bird as a clown or not particularly smart.  
 
The indigenous peoples of Australia had different stories about how the galah got its distinctive appearance. One version said the bald spot beneath the bird’s crest was caused by a lizard’s carelessness. Another story attributed the galah’s pink breast to blood lost in a battle, while in another, the galah becomes pink and gray after trying to help a dove ease the pain of a festering foot.
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Here are some facts about galahs:

While galahs don’t have the raucous confidence of sulphur-crested cockatoos or the cheekiness of gang-gangs, they always strike me as dignified, with a fussy charm all their own.