Before The Backyard Falls Silent- Rainbow Lorikeet Portfolio

Recently I was asked to put together a series of small photographic portfolios of 5–10 images exploring the theme of conservation. I thought I would share them with you.

The first portfolio is titled: Before the Backyard Falls Silent

Across Sydney, increasing housing pressures have led the NSW Government to pursue rezoning changes that will allow for more high-rise and higher-density development. While the need for housing is real, the cost of unchecked expansion may be the gradual destruction of the very environment that makes our city liveable.

Precious trees and habitats — many protected and fought for over decades by local communities — are increasingly under threat. The leafy suburbs that shelter birdlife, possums, insects, reptiles, and countless native species risk becoming landscapes of concrete, glass, and heat, largely devoid of life beyond our own.

Environmental loss rarely happens in one dramatic moment. It happens quietly, tree by tree, habitat by habitat, until one day the sounds and species we once took for granted are simply gone.

Nature does not stay because we expect it to. It stays only if we protect it.

Here is a selection of photographs showing lorikeets in my backyard. We need to keep these — and many other species — safe. I do not want to look back in a few decades and say, “Remember when we used to have lorikeets in our backyard? I wonder where they all went.”