A crisp June morning in Tasmania. Frost sparkled on the car windshield under clear blue skies. We packed the vehicle ahead of two solid day trips around our green state, searching for signs of Tasmania’s rich mining heritage.

There was great satisfaction among the wildlife fraternity in the wake of the reintroduction of a previously wiped-out species to northern South Australia. The red-tailed phascogale, also known as a kenngoor, is a tree-dwelling carnivorous marsupial whose absence from the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park has been a sorry episode for more than a century.

In the late 1970s I found myself in the Great Sandy Desert on one of a series of gridlines bulldozed through the scrub to aid the seismic search for underground oil and gas reserves. It was a sad moment, because on the same track a few months earlier were found the bodies of two young men whose four-wheel drive ute had become bogged.

A decade or so back our small group of trout fishers gathered for our annual get-together on Lake Eucumbene in the NSW Snowy Mountains. Most afternoons we would assemble for a chat and enjoy a relaxed happy hour over drinks and snacks. It was on such an afternoon that we were seated around an aluminium table at one of the group’s caravans when the owner disappeared into his van, returning shortly with a small motley-looking bag which he proceeded to drop onto the table with a resounding metallic clang.

Christmas has come early! Australia’s richest fishing competition, Million Dollar Fish have thrown another 12, $10,000 fish into the water in the Darwin Region – the first time more fish have been released once a season has started. Dubbed ‘All I want for Christmas is a Million Dollar Fish’, the campaign encourages more people to set sail and hit the water for the chance to catch a prize-tagged fish, with hopefully several fishos bagging an early Christmas present.

Our society depends on the hard work of insect pollinators to ensure a diverse – and delicious – supply of fruit and vegetables. Much of the food on display at the shops requires some degree of insect pollination in order to produce high-quality fruit. These include favourites such as melons, apples, blueberries, mangoes, avocadoes and even chocolate.

From lush rainforest to iconic coastline, the Otways region in Southern Victoria rewards visitors with a perfect getaway destination. Winding through the Otways, the Great Ocean Road is best known for views of spectacular cliffs and rock formations, while just inland there await sedate but majestic mountain ash trees towering over dense ferns and waterfalls

I am constantly surprised at how indifferent and unaware of birds most people are. I think birds are marvellous little creatures. They have always fascinated me. A garden, no matter how beautiful, would be a sad place without birds. Most people are busy leading hectic lives and don’t have time to notice the birds sharing their world. And birds are everywhere, once you start observing them.