Zoë Ezzy

We are surrounded by dinosaurs.

I grew up obsessed with dinosaurs and was shocked to learn that we eat them, struggle to clean their poop off our buildings and that they are often ignored! Having grown up in Tasmania I was surprised by just how much diversity can be found in the trees around us and the sky above us, so when it came time to choose a research project, I leapt at the opportunity to study modern-day dinosaurs, or as they are more often known, birds. To do this I looked at wetlands in Central Tasmania, specifically Lagoon of Islands, a place which once had a truly unique ecosystem where floating islands formed and died on the surface of a wetland. In the 1960s the lagoon was dammed, and its islands were flooded and lost, but in 2013 the dam was removed, paving the way for the return of a healthy ecosystem. In my research I tried to understand how birds might have responded to these changes and how birds use Lagoon of Islands differently from other nearby lakes.

When conducting this research, I had a moment of realisation that I had been hearing bird calls all my life but had never actually listened to them or really registered that they were there! I’m excited to share my love of world around us with you and hope that maybe you will start noticing the dinosaurs in your everyday life!