Unique Tasmania

Unique Tasmania 📷 Photography • Video • Stories
🌿 Tasmania • A personal perspective
🐾 Earn the moment • Respect the wild
©️ Unique Tasmania I Rebecca Smith

Meerkats are naturally alert and highly social animals, with individuals often taking turns to stand upright and keep wa...
06/09/2026

Meerkats are naturally alert and highly social animals, with individuals often taking turns to stand upright and keep watch while the rest of the group forage or rest.

Native to the dry, open regions of southern Africa, they live in highly organised social groups and spend much of their time foraging on the ground.

This little sentry was photographed during a recent visit to Hobart Zoo and Aquarium, formerly known as Zoodoo Zoo. The facility changed ownership in 2024 and has since entered a significant period of redevelopment, with the new ownership committing at least $5 million over five years to upgrades.

New and improved habitats, an aquarium, educational facilities and other visitor experiences form part of the ongoing transformation.

While I don’t advocate for zoos in general, I respect the investment being made in improving the facility and its focus on animal welfare, conservation and education. It may not be how I personally choose to experience wildlife, but I can appreciate that facilities such as this give families and other visitors an opportunity to observe and learn in a safe environment, although it was quite confronting to see exotic species behind bars where they do not belong.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

Great Egrets are a regular sight around Tasmania’s wetlands and waterways, but they’re an impressive bird when you stop ...
06/09/2026

Great Egrets are a regular sight around Tasmania’s wetlands and waterways, but they’re an impressive bird when you stop and appreciate their size. They can stand around a metre tall, with a wingspan reaching well over a metre.

Despite their size, they spend much of their time patiently wading through shallow water, hunting fish, frogs and other small aquatic animals.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

A few of the birds photographed during a recent day on Maria Island. From the colourful Green Rosellas to tiny robins an...
05/09/2026

A few of the birds photographed during a recent day on Maria Island. From the colourful Green Rosellas to tiny robins and swallows, there was certainly no shortage of birdlife around the island.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

🧸 Is there anything cuter than a baby wombat?Wombat pouches face backwards, which helps keep dirt out while mum is diggi...
05/09/2026

🧸 Is there anything cuter than a baby wombat?

Wombat pouches face backwards, which helps keep dirt out while mum is digging. This little juvenile on Maria Island was still comfortably squished in the pouch, peeking out between mum’s back legs.

🚨 Tip: Purchase your ferry tickets online (Encounter Maria Island ferry website) before heading to Triabunna, familiarise yourself with information about Maria Island, and plan your day prior to arrival using information found on the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service website.

📷 Sony A7R VI | FE 70–200mm F4 Macro G OSS II
190mm | f/5.6 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 1600 | Cropped

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

Kelp Gulls are hard to miss with their large size and seriously impressive bills, which are well suited to tackling the ...
03/09/2026

Kelp Gulls are hard to miss with their large size and seriously impressive bills, which are well suited to tackling the shellfish and other food they find around the coastline.

This one had managed to find itself a decent meal along the shoreline. Unfortunately, keeping hold of it was another matter!

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

Superb Fairy-wrens have quite a complex family life. They often live in small cooperative groups, with young from previo...
03/09/2026

Superb Fairy-wrens have quite a complex family life. They often live in small cooperative groups, with young from previous broods sometimes remaining with the group and helping to feed and care for the next generation of chicks.

Despite the obvious difference in appearance between this male and female, both are part of a species with a surprisingly social way of raising their young.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

The brilliant blue and black plumage of the male is seasonal, worn during the breeding season before he moults back into...
02/09/2026

The brilliant blue and black plumage of the male is seasonal, worn during the breeding season before he moults back into much plainer colouring. This little male was busy preening, giving me a chance to capture some of that incredible colour and feather detail.

While Superb Fairy-wrens are also found across south-eastern mainland Australia, the birds we see here in Tasmania belong to the subspecies *Malurus cyaneus cyaneus*, which is found only in Tasmania.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

**Amendment": Link in comments for those interested in the Clarence Plains Historic Trail.The Rokeby Watch House is a bu...
01/09/2026

**Amendment": Link in comments for those interested in the Clarence Plains Historic Trail.

The Rokeby Watch House is a building I’ve driven past many times without really stopping to appreciate just how much history sits behind those sandstone walls.

Dating from around 1850, the building once contained three cells, along with rooms for constables, a watch-house keeper and magistrate, and even a day work room for prisoners. A nine-foot-high slab fence once enclosed the prisoners' area — a very different scene from the garden and flowering hedges surrounding the building today.

The Watch House was the first historic site on the original Old Rokeby Historic Trail, which explored the remnants of the old village and the people and places that shaped the area. The trail has since evolved to tell a much broader story of Clarence Plains and its Aboriginal and European history.

Today, the old Watch House, while privately owned, remains a distinctive part of Rokeby, with its sandstone walls preserving a small piece of a much larger local history.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

I do appreciate the incredible displays nature puts on around us each day — weather dependent, of course!With the tide o...
31/08/2026

I do appreciate the incredible displays nature puts on around us each day — weather dependent, of course!

With the tide out and the last of the evening light settling behind kunanyi / Mount Wellington, it was one of those local scenes worth sitting, reflecting and peacefully observing the end of another day.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

Forest Ravens are a familiar sight across Tasmania and my favourite bird. Seeing one this close gives a much better appr...
31/08/2026

Forest Ravens are a familiar sight across Tasmania and my favourite bird. Seeing one this close gives a much better appreciation of the subtle detail hidden within their seemingly black plumage.

They are intelligent and curious birds, each with their own personality, and will often spend just as much time observing what is happening around them as we do watching them.

In the right light, their feathers reveal shades of blue, grey and purple, while the striking pale eyes of an adult stand out against the dark feathers.

Unique Tasmania 📷 Rebecca Smith

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