The Latest Breaking News from Sean Dooley

How Flinders Island residents developed a taste for mutton bird, or shearwaters, a meat that tastes like a mix of seafood and chicken

Eating mutton bird is part of a long culture in the Furneaux Island group. While the rest of Australia is enjoying the short-tailed shearwater with binoculars, island dwellers are getting out their knives and forks.

ABC News · Apr 3, 2023

Superb fairywrens more likely to help family members in distress than strangers, like humans

Beloved Australian songbird will risk life and limb for its breeding group but ignore cries for help from unfamiliar birds, scientists say

The Guardian - AU · Mar 10, 2023

Musk duck found in Central Australia for first time probably lost

A species of duck that has not been seen in Central Australia for more than 120 years turns up at the Alice Springs sewage ponds.

ABC News · Mar 3, 2023

Is Australia’s growing love of Halloween endangering our wildlife?

According to an online warning, decorations such as fake spiderweb ‘take a terrible toll’ on birds. We ask the experts how big a problem it is

The Guardian - AU · Oct 29, 2022

Bar-tailed godwit sets world record with 13,560km continuous flight from Alaska to southern Australia

Satellite tag data suggests five-month-old migratory bird did not stop during voyage which took 11 days and one hour to reach Tasmania

The Guardian - AU · Oct 26, 2022

Toondah Harbour developer says curlew numbers unlikely to be affected, as species already in decline

Opponents of proposed project in Ramsar-listed wetlands say developer’s impact statement is “fantasy”

The Guardian - AU · Oct 12, 2022

Mystery surrounds cluster of satin bowerbird deaths in the Gold Coast hinterland

Landowner and bird experts cast doubt on Queensland government’s snail poison theory

The Guardian - AU · Aug 27, 2022

Mistletoe decline could threaten nectar-feeding bird populations

Mistletoe can be native birds' only source of food in times of moderate drought. There are fears extreme dry weather could be too much for even the hardy plant to survive.

ABC News · Jul 18, 2022

Do birders make good tourists? ‘In the 90s you’d get some deeply suspicious looks’

Birdwatchers can be eccentric visitors but a recent report found they spend big in regional Australia

The Guardian - AU · May 1, 2022