visitors

Welcome wallies

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I get so few visits from more than one wandering wallaby that I was delighted to see this little trio of game boys venture in right near the house one early evening after rain.

They are the same Eastern Red-necked Wallabies that I lived with — in such great numbers — at my old Mountain home. As I have now been here two years, I had hoped that the word would have got around that no dogs lived here any more.

This gang of young males were not afraid, didn’t mind me opening the verandah door to take these shots, but were wary, as is only right.

But I miss my old familiars, the mothers and joeys always hanging about the yard. Patiently, hopefully, I await their discovery of my sanctuary. There is a sign on the gate; maybe they are less educated over here?

Incoming birds

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It being Spring, the Willy Wagtail mum has been busily readying last year’s nest for the 2016 brood.
The nest had looked perfectly serviceable, as it was as neat and symmetrical as she had originally made it.

However she seemed driven to add another layer, which brings it alarmingly close to the verandah roof.
While this is insulated, I fear for the babies if we get more summer-like early heat. 

Mum is now on the nest more than off, so I assume she has laid eggs. Dad spends his time dive-bombing magpies to keep them away.

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The other new regular visitor is a King Parrot, solo and talkative.

He has been sitting on my vegie garden’s bamboo posts and — I swear — chattering to me.

I have taken to standing at my back door and chattering back.

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He does not fly off when I go to fetch the camera.

Next time I will dare to step closer than the verandah and get a sharper shot.

Finch flurries

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Now that Spring is showing itself and the weeds amongst my ‘lawn’ are seeding, clouds of teeny grass finches are harvesting them.

The ones now visiting are gorgeous little birds — Red-browed Finches, native to Eastern Australia’s coastal edge, or at least east of the Dividing Range.

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They have a red rump, pink legs, a red brow and beak, with soft grey and olive green in between. They flutter up and resettle like consecutive musical keys, just a foot away from where they were when I startled them.

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Heads down feeding, with their olive backs as camouflage they are quite hard to spot from a distance. Only the frequent flurries give them away. I have a flock of about 10 delighting me at present.

Black and white

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I am used to seeing splashes and dashes of black and white at a distance, in the tall trees along the creek, for the White-headed Pigeons feed there often.

Near the house I am used to the Magpies and Butcherbirds strutting about in their dapper black and white outfits and singing their own praises.

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I am not used to seeing a flock of large unknown black and white birds feeding on the creek flat. I counted 22! From the house they looked as big as pelicans, but clearly weren’t.

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They were keeping their heads down, their beaks poked well into the grass, which was also long enough to hide their legs, so I was at a loss to work out what they might be.

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The camera zoom finally found me a couple who had ventured into shorter grass. Long beak, long legs.

Ibis of a sort, but which?

They had to be Straw-necked Ibis, the most common in Australia. I could see the greenish sheen on their backs, and even if I couldn’t really see straw-coloured tufts on their chests, there were tufts.

Being vagrants, they were gone by evening.

But I am always grateful for even fleeting visits from wild creatures.

Weavers

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Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the dearth of blog posts lately. The website has been in process of transferring servers and this has been more of a prolonged nightmare than imagined, with many unexpected side effects and hiccups.

Hopefully we can now get back into a routine of weekly posts, where I snap and rabbit on about my wildlife and webmaster Fred turns them into web language.

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On a bushwalk I noticed this odd swathing at the base of a tree.

A bug-savvy friend tells me this is probably the home of one of the ‘bag moth caterpillars’ — family Ochrogaster, also called procession caterpillars. Apparently they feed at night on the tree and ‘hide’ in their web during daylight.

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Then I found a smaller swathing. Having harvested the Kangaroo Apple bushes which were about at the end of their season, I’d put the oldest fruit in a dish, prior to planting them.

I’d left it overnight on a table on the verandah.

In the morning, I found they were neatly and thoroughly enmeshed by the web of a tiny, hard-working spider.

What amazed me was how it had formed anchor points on the smooth sides of the stainless steel dish. Some superglue!

Beethoven and butcher-birds

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I have always envied people who have butcher-bIrds in their environs. I never have, despite them being distributed over most of Australia.

My magpies are handsome and dapper enough to cover the visual advantages of black and white birds, and I do love their songs…

But they cannot compete with the songs of butcher-birds.

And this week I saw one here, just in front of the desk window. Or I thought I did. It took off so fast I fancied I may have been mistaken; just wishful thinking.

Like when I’d fancied I heard a butcher-bird call here a few times; not being so familiar with them I wasn’t sure.

My bird book describes its song as ‘Beautiful flute-like calls, one of the most common recalling Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony’.

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But then I spotted it over on the little shed roof, a tiny spot of black and white. The camera zoom confirmed it was a Pied Butcher-bird.

If you’re wondering why they are called that, my book says it’s because they wedge their prey in a suitable branch fork to make feeding easier.

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And if you’re also wondering why my back yard looks like a quarry, I am aiming to turn my boggy flat into a pond. Now I wait for rain to see if it holds water.

Maybe then I’ll have water birds visit…

Love or lust

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As I am still trying to sort out drainage here, my vegetable patch is still open to all visitors of the munchy type.

I have just tossed in seeds of whatever I had, wherever.

The cucurbits are doing well and are not tempting for munchers. But there is corn…

This beautiful young Eastern Red-necked Wallaby appeared to be eating naught but grass, so I had no complaints and no need to do other than admire.

Look at those neat little black paws!

This young one bolted as a female arrived — Mum? — closely followed by a largish male, levering himself up close with what seemed like clear intent.

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She wasn’t having any, however, and took off up the steep bank.

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How relieved I was to see that bub was up there and that this was a family reunion — love not lust? — and all was well. 

Screen creature

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This striking silhouette met me the other morning. ‘Let me in!’ or ‘How the hell do I get down?’

The screen door wire is a bit floppy and it can’t have felt comfortable or secure for this creature.

I worried that its ultra-long and delicate toes would be stuck in the mesh…

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Gently sliding the door open, I looked him in the eye. I know you, I thought.

It’s a Jacky Lizard, my favourite of old, too seldom seen here.

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An extraordinary creature, a miniature marvel, with its stony camouflage, needlepoint tail and fine digits, although the camouflage was not so great for screenwire…

I don’t know what he was seeking or where he was headed but you’ll be pleased to know he retreated with fingers and toes intact, and I have since seen him on the deck. Or at least a quicksilver glimpse before he flipped off the edge and out of sight.

Taking it easy

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I do miss my plentiful Crimson Rosellas, but today I saw my first King Parrot visitor for the summer fruit season here.

Always stunningly attired, this was one was also most relaxed, with no cats or dogs about.

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So much so, that for the first time I think I saw a parrot yawn…!

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But the mammals are getting pretty cruisey here too; the male wallaby who delighted my Air BnB guests this morning returned this evening to loll about near the house and clean his tail and ears.

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They are just starting to behave like my mates back up the Mountain.

I am so pleased. 

Ladder snake

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I have seen a tree snake trying to climb a water tank here. I suspect this is the same slender Green Tree Snake, made smarter by that experience.

Now it uses the ladder.

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My book says that this snake will inflate the fore part of its body when threatened; I’m not sure if it was me or the ladder that it considered threatening but it was clearly fatter at the front.

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Just look at the way it manages to hang on to the ladder while investigating the old guttering leaning against the wall beside it. As unwelcoming a climbing surface as the water tank was…

My book also said that this snake can be can be grey, green, blue, brown, black or yellow, so I’m only assuming I’ve identified this one correctly.

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The skin between the scales is apparently most revealed when the snake inflates – blue – but this one seems dotted with blue…?

Penthouse wildlife

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I have become so accustomed to the flock of White-headed Pigeons landing in the tallest branches of the tallest Camphor Laurel by the creek that I don’t rush for the camera.

Just the usual penthouse residents again.

Luckily, this time I paid more attention. These birds looked different.

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Without the camera zoom I couldn’t see the brown punk tufts on their heads, like bald men with thick toupées, hoping it makes them still look young…

These were Topknot Pigeons.

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My first sighting here and only my second ever anywhere. That was in 1997 at my Mountain and I was unsure about the I.D. then. No zoom!

 Pigeon profusion

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At my old Mountain I was delighted as the White-headed Pigeon population that occasionally visited grew to eight. They would visit my ridge from the rainforest gullies that pleated my Mountain’s sides.

Here I am even more blessed. The remnant rainforest along the creek includes some large Camphor Laurels. No blessing, except that the White-headed Pigeons love these domineering pest trees.

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Large flocks of 30, 30, 50… wheel and bank overhead as they choose which tree to settle in. The flock splits in two.

They fly too fast for me to photograph them like this, and once they roost they are lost in the tree foliage.

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So, even in this light rain, I seized the chance of visibility when some alighted in a lichen-draped dead tree.