life

Days of their lives

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Early morning, sunshine after days of rain, the grass still soggy. The kangaroo family has decided that just inside the forever-open gate, on the hard-packed clay track, is the driest place to rest.

They know my car only moves out of the shed every few weeks — the track’s more for them than for me.

Midday, and one of the echidnas has been poking about on the same track, then working its way down some steps cut into the bank. It had reached the flat area near the cabin and was moseying along the wall towards my steps.

I’d had to net the ornamental grape there, so its shoots had a chance to grow to be my summer shade. Having already seen a joey go under it and panic somewhat, suddenly I saw a potential problem in the combination of spikes and netting, should the echidna go in under the wire.

As it did, but kept going, under the verandah and out. Untangling an echidna might not have been easy.

Late afternoon, and over the top of the netted toddler barrier, a wallaby family was mowing the grass near the steps. I’m no longer sure if I’m netted in, or they out. Lucky I have long legs for a shortie and can step over this barrier.

I had to add the netting because one day I surprised a joey munching on the plants on the verandah, having got through the wooden bars.

I don’t mean to be voyeuristic but sometimes the colloquial greeting, ‘How’re they hanging?’ takes on new meaning. And to think they leap through the tall tussocks without getting caught up or damaged…

Biffo boys

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In my wallaby world, there’s been a fair amount of girl-chasing going on lately, and as there always seems to be a lot of competition amongst the males for a female on heat, inevitably that leads to arguments.
These two males were in a group that was following a young female down the hill past my yard. For some reason — a muttered slight on the lady’s honour or the the rival’s virility? — they broke off the pursuit and began fighting.
Their necks look vulnerable in the position they assume, but it must be against the rules to go for the throat. The pair of them kept it up as they danced through the tussocks, turning and tumbling down the slope to the gully, out of my sight.

So I don’t know who won — the fight or the fair maid!

Life – and death?

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swallowI was delighted to see my Welcome Swallow couple back, swinging on my verandah fairy lights and re-occupying their nest on the rafter. I meant to do a post for you when the eggs hatched, as she seemed to be sitting most of the time now.

However after a few days away, no sign of either of them, on the nest or on the light strings or in the sky. All I found were small feathers in the base of the shower and what could have been dried blood – or was it dampened remnants of the red dust storm of that week?

Whatever happened — they’re both gone.

Saddened by this, I was doubly delighted to see the male Maned Wood Duck in the yard, but wondered where the female was. I hoped she hadn’t been taken too!
wood-ducks-1Next day my concern was erased.

Outside the yard fence, poking about along the edge of the mown grass, there they were — a whole family. The pair were leading five little ducklings, which I couldn’t see clearly as they must have been admonished to stick close to cover.
wood-ducks-2

Tree homes

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elkhorn farAs you might expect, given that I live in forest country, I love trees.
elkhorn closeup

On my place I keep planting more where they haven’t managed to regenerate by themselves after the clearing and burning and grazing of years ago.

Mostly I look at the forest as a wall, I suppose—and thus miss the individuality of the trees.

I ought to look up into my treetops more often, for koalas, not seen here since the 2002 fires.

I keep hoping, as I think I heard one a few months ago.

No koalas yet, but other things live in trees, like this beautifully healthy and quite old elkhorn high up in a casuarina.

When they get this big they can be too heavy for the tree or branch, and hence vulnerable to snapping off in a storm.

broken treeEven when a tree is totally destroyed, its trunk broken off and laid low, taken from skydweller to ground hugger, it takes on new life as host. Like this mighty ancient, which blocked the track for some time until a big enough chainsaw came along.

Where possums and birds may have lived in it before, now termites and beetles and fungi are residents.

fungoid colony
This fungus colony has taken shelter in the horizontal overhang created by what was once vertical.

Nothing is wasted in nature.

Lily pad life

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waterlily1

waterlily2

tadpoles

greenfrog

water insects

dragonfliesOn my small dam the waterlilies are blooming, their large circular leaves so abundant that they are overlapping, curling up at their edges.

There are two green floating islands of them, one bearing pale pink lotus-like cups, the other such a pale lemon as to seem white.

Since these aquatic plants had all but disappeared in the drought, I went down to have a closer look at their new burst of life.

Life indeed, for the waterlily rafts are hosting a multitude of fauna.

Two tiny tortoises slipped back into the water as I approached.

The dozens of tadpoles apparently hanging from the water surface soon proved to be hundreds, of several types, and all fat and healthy.

Some of the smaller ones already had legs sprouting from their translucent brown sides.

In the middle of the lily pads I spotted a tiny jewel of a green frog.

‘Water boatmen’ rowed their skinny insect selves across the surface.

Delicate blue and red jointed sticks with gauze wings perched rigidly solo, or curved in what I presumed to be copulating pairs, on lily leaves and reed stems — mayflies, dragonflies?

Beetles and other strange insects busied themselves on the pads.

I came home to refer to my old pond life book, to be able to tell you with authority what these dam inhabitants are, but like so many other books — I must have lent it out long ago and forgotten to whom.

So nameless but beautiful they remain.