This photo of a scooter-riding rat by GOAT, claimed to be the first AI-powered street artist, was taken on a recent trip to New York. For me, so many places we travelled to in USA evoked sounds and images from books, films, songs and newspaper reports . . . .

I’ve been writing about trees again and remembering the garden where every photo of my family was taken. In this one I’m leaning on my favourite tree – a white, weeping broom in full bloom. I was probably about 6 or 7 years old . . . .

This is a photo of Siobhan O’Sullivan and I. We became friends and colleagues soon after the Animals and Society Study Group (now the Australasian Animal Studies Association) was formed in 2005. Siobhan passed away today and this is my personal tribute . . . .

In Autumn, wasps came to drink at the Ragged Garden birdbath. They flew to the edge of the bath, leaned in till their feelers nearly touched the surface, then dipped their tiny mouths in the water.

This photo was taken at Budj Bim National Park in southwestern Victoria, Australia. The park gives a unique insight into the lives of the Gunditjmara people who lived in this rich and productive landscape, forged by a long history of volcanic activity, for many thousands of years.

This photo was taken at a performance of Brahms German Requiem, which has been called ‘an anthem for our time’. I was one of 430 singers who took part in this moving event - read more about why this requiem is so relevant today . . . .

This stray kitten came into my life for just two days, but made a huge impact. Read about Sweetie, how she was rescued and all that I learnt from my time with her.

On 14 December I took part in an Arts and Humanities roundtable on thylacine de-extinction, organised by Sarah Bezan from the University of York. One of the images of a thylacine I talked about was made by the Yaburara people of the Dampier Archipelago in Western Australia. Is this a good resurrection?

"It was pouring with rain as we toured the abandoned zoo – as if tears were falling from every animal ever confined there" Read my article, with Brendan Lennard, about the animals in the zoo that stood on Hobart's Domain from 1923 to 1937.

The Ragged Garden now has a sign and an area of plants native to Tasmania. The native plants acknowledge the muwinina people who lived on this land for thousands of years before the Ragged School was built. The sign says ‘This garden was planted in memory of the children of Wapping’, but now it also remembers the people who cared for this landscape before colonisation . . . .

How much do you know about seagulls? For a start, seagulls are not one species but many and they do not necessarily live by the sea. I knew very little about their lives until I researched the silver gulls of Hobart for a conference presentation.

Here is another photo of the garden I made at the back of our townhouse complex. I call it the Ragged Garden because it’s on the site of the former Lower Collins Street Ragged School that operated there from 1858-1914.

Hobart street artist and muralist, Jamin, has just finished two works on walls near the new University of Tasmania city accommodation building in Melville Street. They show a girl looking through a hole at an Eastern quoll. It’s great to see them emerge as we walk up a lane a few steps from Elizabeth Street.

This photo was taken the Kindred Spirits Conference in Bloomington, Indiana in 2006. It shows Annie Potts, myself, Carol Adams and Carol Gigliotti. Kindred Spirits was one of the very early Animal Studies conferences and a milestone in my involvement in this new and rewarding cross-disciplinary field.

This photo was taken on Christmas Day 2017 at Sandford near Hobart, Tasmania. Sixteen-year-old Sen has received a drone for Christmas . . . . see the pictures of the lagoon and surrounding countryside that he took that day.

This photo was taken last summer in the garden I made on a formerly neglected space at the back of our townhouse complex. New shoots from the seeds that fell from these flowers are just starting to break through the ground and soon the birds will come back.

Dan Moody at Design ID was responsible for redesigning my website, adding functionality and teaching me how to use WordPress. Dan works out of a flexible workspace in an old sail-making loft on Hobart's waterfront.

Last week a story broke about the renewed effort to clone the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger). I was one of several 'experts' who are less optimistic about the project, interviewed for Scientific American by journalist Kate Evans.

In 2019 I visited Copenhagen and took this photo near the canal, not far from Amalienborg Palace in Frederiksstaden. Back home in Hobart in 2020, in a tiny neglected space behind our townhouse complex, I found two abandoned planters like this one and made a garden.

This is the home where I grew up. The Canary Island date palm on the right and the birds who congregated there were a constant presence during my childhood. Perhaps this is why I love trees so much.

This is the first of the Photostories I'll post each week. This photo was taken in 2012 in the centre of Utrecht, The Netherlands. The dog and the man are not unlike each other in their appearance and attitude, but I love that the dog has the best chair.

Listen to my interview on Hobart ABC radio Mornings with Mel Bush, where I discussed the origin of Hobart City Council's Tree Register and how it works to preserve important trees in the city's urban environment.

Hobart City Council has a register of trees deemed beautiful, historic, old or rare. I located 10 very different trees, searched for their history, described and photographed them.