About Me

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Canberra-based naturalist, conservationist, educator since 1980. I’m passionate about the natural world (especially the southern hemisphere), and trying to understand it and to share such understandings. To that aim I’ve written several books (most recently 'Birds in Their Habitats' and 'Australian Bird Names; origins and meanings'), run tours all over Australia, and for the last decade to South America, done a lot of ABC radio work, chaired a government environmental advisory committee and taught many adult education classes – and of course presented this blog, since 2012. I am the recipient of the Australian Natural History Medallion, the Australian Plants Award and most recently a Medal of the Order of Australia for ‘services to conservation and the environment’. I live happily in suburban Duffy with my partner Louise surrounded by a dense native garden and lots of birds.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

On This Day, 18 September; Chilean Independence Day

On this day in 1810 the colonial governor of Chile was deposed and replaced by a Council of seven, based in Santiago; this was only the beginning of the end of Spanish rule, but it is marked now as the first of two consecutive Fiestas Patrias, effectively Chile's national days. I am very fond of Chile, it having been my introduction to South America. Rather than try to encompass a whole country here, I shall use the opportunity to celebrate Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, surely one of the most spectacular national parks in the world. It centres around the three Torres ('towers') of granite, capped with hard basalt, flanked by the jagged Cuernos ('the horns'). It features major glacier fields and beautiful glacial lakes, and remarkable wildlife, including big herds of Guanacos, rare virtually everywhere else. The mountains are not the Andes, which at this latitude are entering the sea to the west, but a free-standing range.

I am, by nature, a tropical and desert person; I didn't expect to be totally smitten by a wind-swept landscape 700km south of Hobart, at latitude 51 degrees south, but I was. I hope these pictures can give you some idea why - if not (or even if so), we'll be coming back to Torres del Paine in future postings here!
The Towers from the south
The Towers over Lake Nordenskjold

The Cuernos from Salto Grande

Moon over the Cuernos

Iceberg on Lago Grey; it calved from the Grey Glacier at the head of the lake,
visible in the background 15km away

Chilean Flamingoes

Andean Condors over the Torres

Long-tailed Meadowlark

Darwin's Rhea and chicks

Magellanic Woodpecker
Viola maculata (I have some trouble with the concept of a yellow violet!)
Porcelain Orchid, Chloraea magellanica
Male Guanacos fighting for mating rights.


1 comment:

Flabmeister said...

When running the Melbourne Marathon Fitzroy Street, St Kilda is met late in the event and often referred to as El Torre del Pain!