Michael Smith
2001
Michael Smith has lived on the Tomaree Peninsula for the past 16 years. For most of that time he kept notes on the coming and goings of the resident birds, animals and plants. His observations are now published in a book titled Bush Mates. There are 134 pages, most of which are devoted to a week-by-week diary of natural events. There are complete lists of our local frogs, snakes, birds and animals. For the astronomer there is a monthly guide to the stars as well as plans for making a sundial, astrolabe, planisphere and a device for telling the time from the southern cross. There are chapters on local geology, plant communities and weather patterns. The bush tucker chapter has sections on natural dyes, bush teas, fragrant foliages and lists uses for 183 local plants as food or medicine. This is the second edition of Bush Mates. The first edition has been out of print for several years. Bush Mates, 134 pages, 514 sketches, is available from local bookshops and the Visitor Centre. Quotes from Michael Smith 'It has been a great experience spending years in the bush, tasting the plants and watching the carefully timed disappearences and returns of the characters of the bush'. 'Out there, beyond the back paling fences, occur sudden explosions of activity, which will last for a day or a few months. Each day fairy penguins come ashore on Broughton Island to sleep underground. Just before Christmas our rarest plant, the leafless tongue orchid, flowers and waits for a particular wasp to help pollinate it. Suddenly, in mid August, all the males of our local marsupial mouse population die within a week.' 'Most residents of the Tomaree Peninsula would be aware of some of the major events of nature, the June appearence of the humpback whales, the Easter blooming of the paperbarks, August wattles, and the huge die off of muttonbirds in October on our beaches.'
Read this work at the World Public Library (library card needed).