Tim Low > Quotes

“Foreign leaves feed many a marsupial, grub and duck. Koalas often munch on American cypress pine needles and camphor laurel leaves. (They also like to perch in camphor laurels in summer for the cool shade they throw.) Exotic foods, and I don’t just mean weeds, are thoroughly enmeshed in foodwebs. Most Australia’s birds of prey take exotic meats. A study around Mildura found that young rabbits were the staple food (60-92 percent by weight) of eagles, goshawks, harriers, kites and falcons – eight species in all. That was be calicivirus struck. Wedge-tailed eagles will eat feral cats. In Western Australia little eagles moved into the south-west when rabbits arrived, then retreated after myxomatosis struck. House mice feed hawks, snakes and owls in central Australia, making up to 97 percent of barn owl diets.”
― Tim Low, Radio Volume 2

“Outback birds need regular water, and many of these are thriving. Those doing better than ever include zebra finches, wood ducks, Bourke's parrots and possibly emus. On the other hand many insect-eaters are doing badly, because grazing stock destroy the plants on which insects breed. Seed-eaters themselves suffer when grasses are grazed too low to set seed. Dams create plenty of losers as well as winners, and that's something to keep in mind.”
― Tim Low, Radio Volume 2

“The irony here is exquisite - an endangered bird helping to spread a major weed. It's aa challenging example of the riddles of the 'new nature'.”
― Tim Low, Radio Volume 2

“What all these stories show is that no law of nature forces native animals to prefer their natural foods, or even to recognize them. Some do (say koalas on gum leaves) but many don’t. A currawong guzzling grapes might not look quite natural to us, but the bird doesn’t see it that way. By nature it is an opportunist. For our native wildlife, the foreign plants and animals flourishing in Australia today afford untold opportunities too good to pass by.”
― Tim Low, Radio Volume 2

“By sniffing and licking anything that oozed from trees, colonial botanists found that Australia abounded in interesting exudates.”
― Tim Low, Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World