Our great southern migration

  We have moved in! Our mailing address is PO Box 5291, Cobargo, NSW, 2550.  Our storage unit is empty We rented a trailer and Betty White (the truck) towed it back and forth twice. That did it. There are now more things in the house We have been putting furniture together (hunting down missing pieces), collapsing lots of boxes, killing several spiders, and meeting some of our neighbors.  This spider had early residence and has not been killed but I think may now have migrated outside. Not super poisonous. Scott named her Gladys. I have not been keeping up with the blog. Instead, I have been unpacking and cleaning things.  Most of my effort the last couple of days has been on arranging and re-arranging kitchen supplies. Pretty happy with it but going shopping today so that may change my needs! Those two jars on the right are also my first attempt at doing something with the 100+ ripe tomatoes in our garden. Think canning is in our future but maybe not quite there yet...

      As we were walking around Dederang (before the fires), we heard birds making a "ZZZ" sound. The sound was like a big bug zapper or a large bee. They looked like willie wagtails. I saw three gang up on a kookaburra- not typical wagtail behavior. Ebird helped figure it out. They were actually restless flycatchers. According to ebird, they make an "incomparable buzzing scissors-grinder sound". I did see them repeatedly gang up on other birds.  Flycatcher sound In Dederang, they were also fighting the installation of a lithium battery farm: There was already a power plant in place and this was to be replaced by two battery set ups. The locals were really worried about fires (fair!) and battery explosions. Since most everything would be downwind/downriver, they thought the health risk unacceptable.    The current power plant is already above regulated noise levels so they have to fix that before batteries could be installed. I recorded the sound but it isn...

  This was from our truck window as we drove along the edge of the Longwood fire in Victoria, trying to head to the Melbourne area to get out of the fire zone. To catch you up (the US has had its share of trauma, too), much of Victoria burst into flames a few days ago. We were in Dederang in the Kiewa Valley. Very hot, very dry air made for a combustable environment. We had temperatures 43-45C (110-113F) and lots of wind. Any spark from a motor or branches rubbing can set off a fire and many brush and grass fires did start. The biggest ones were on either side of us. In the fire map below, we were at the blue binoculars. The wind was blowing eastward so really we weren't too worried about the fire to the right/east but the one to the left/west (Longwood) was huge and growing. And also headed eastward.  At that time, we were taking care of the dog, cat and two horses. There was a horse trailer but where would we take them? There was a dam on the property but no easy way to get ...

  Tis the season for babies! We found this yellow robin working on the nest. We know it was a nest because they brought over twigs and then sat and wriggled on it to get it shaped. I was going through the photos and was very puzzled on why we took pictures of an esoteric looking branch. Once I get to the ones with the bird on it, it made more sense! We have our own yellow robin nest at the farm. Early days, yet, when we left. In the instance below, I didn't realize we had babies in the tree hollow until I got back and magnified the shot. This means you have to use your imagination goggles to interpret the blob as a sulfur-crested cockatoo chick. Or maybe not. I am choosing to believe.  I am also choosing to believe this was a platypus head swimming down the river: The river does have platypus in it; not impossible to believe and it is the season! Less imagination is required for these little willie wagtails! When I first saw the nest, they were huddled up and not distinctly bi...