Our great southern migration

  The bottlebrush bloomed and the birds arrived en masse. Friday morning Scott came to get me - I needed to see what was going on in the "formal garden". We have two of these trees in the garden and the nectar-eating birds were busy. The initial pair of rainbow lorikeets permitted some birds to join them but many got relegated to other trees. The satin bowerbird seemed to be okay picking cherry blossoms to either eat or to decorate his bower: The yellow-faced  (below) and Lewin's honeyeaters were not too cowed and stayed sipping nectar The silvereyes occasionally popped over but mostly stayed in the pencil willow  This cutie popped up in the bay tree We saw an old friend! This was the first time we sighted a scarlet honeyeater on our farm.  The welcome swallows were buzzing around  as were the red wattlebirds We heard the gang-gangs fly past- no pics.  Our usual garden tenants, the crimson rosellas, were not to be seen that morning. They were back this morn...

  I have kept these pictures of the Potato Point Big Bad Banksia men (and women) on hold for awhile.  I have been waiting on the right post. I guess today is it! It has been misting for the last couple of days, the garden is still in seedling stage and we don't have a lot of other updates. So you are getting a taste of growing up Australian.  The banksia men star as the villians of the Gumnut baby stories and are always plotting to capture the children. We had the book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie  for the kids. Picture chubby toddlers wearing eucalyptus gum nuts (image below) on their heads and not wearing much else As it is children's story, the banksia men are thwarted in their bad behavior, often by Mr. Lizard, a goanna so fast he isn't afraid of the banksia men or snakes! In reality, the banksia start as delicate bird-friendly flowers    As do the gumnuts Photo by Leon Brooks, gumnuts-flowering The goannas are often up a tree, trying to not be noticed And ...

  Our first lambs! One white, one not so white. With the floppy ears, the white one more resembles a pup or a calf. Neither resemble Dad. Or Mom, for that matter.  Our second set of lambs arrived before I finished the post. Dora had bright white twins that look just like her It was cool and misty last night but the first set were full of milk and totally relaxed  this morning. The other 3 ewes still have big bellies. But, for that matter, so does the ram. The ram ("Pauncho") is hanging out with Dubya, for now. The two seem to have bonded.  Pauncho even found some special shade on a very hot day Dubya was actually calling to the ram when we were in their paddock the other day. Friendship does not include sharing grain but sharing hay is okay.  Love has been in the air all around. The blue-tongue lizard found a fellow- for a short while at least. Apparently the males are a love 'em and leave 'em type. The lizard is on her own for the 4-5 months before she gives bi...

Back to ornithology lessons as we have a hiatus in new types of activity this week. The main excitement was the RFS (fire service) community event this morning. The big kids played with the fake fire and smoke machines while waiting for the little kids to show up: So many of the Australian birds are identified by eye color; this correlates with a variety of interesting colors.  This  deranged-looking thornbill above is a Barrabaroo resident. We do have at least three types of thornbills; the red eye marks this one as a brown thornbill vs a striated thornbill. These little birds dart around quickly and typically travel in small flocks. Their high level of activity makes it a challenge to get an in-focus photo. I don't think we have buff rumped thornbills here - the light blue eye is just strange. This pied currawong is posing in the formal garden - until he wasn't. Currawongs are often the last to sing in the evening and the first to start up in the morning. They have a lovely ...