visitors

Welcome wallies

by

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?

Finch flurries

by

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.

finches-2

finches-3

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.

finches-4

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

by

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.

bw-2

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.

bw-3

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.

bw-4

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.

Screen creature

by

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…

jacky-2

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.

jacky-3

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.

Critter bank

by

As my house is on a cut-and-fill into the hillside, there is steep bank behind it, the view from my kitchen window.

I am gradually clearing it of weeds and making small terraces, pockets of soil for hardy vegetables like pumpkins to spread over its clay sides.

I am mulching it as I go. It is an inhospitable slope, habitat only for ants and spiders so far as I have seen.

dragon-2

Last week I was distracted from the washing-up by a dark motionless shape there. What was it and was it alive or dead?

Sneaking out, camera in hand, I was delighted to see it was an Eastern Water Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii).

dragon-3

An extraordinary creature up close, fiercesome of eye and fabulous of pattern, spiked and ridged and scale-armoured like a mini-dinosaur.

On my old mountain, his little cousin the Jacky Lizard was my favourite reptile.

wallabies-1

On top of the bank is grassed, mown by me and the wallabies.

It backs up to the weedy wilderness beyond the fenceline, which includes Lantana, a favourite habitat for the Water Dragons, I read.

wallabies-2

I am still charmed by these wallabies, and heartened to see them visiting me daily now and being far less wary. If they move off, it is only a little way.

Having been through this courtship process at my old property, I know we will eventually be happily cohabiting.

Passersby?

by

Heading outside late at night, I heard a telltale heavy rustle amongst the leaves of the Crepuscule rose that clmibs up one end of the verandah.

A guilty Brushtail Possum scrambled up under the rafters, hoping I couldn’t see it. Which I couldn’t, until I looked around the post — and used a torch. Unfair advantage, I know.

passersby-2

Many people consider these critters cute; I don’t. They eat roses. And citrus.

One seems to hang about for a while and them move elsewhere. A brief stopover.

passersby-3

My Nashi trees are dropping their yellowing leaves, which turn dark brown to black on the ground — if the wallabies don’t get to them first.

So it wasn’t surprising that a large black leaf had blown a little off course – at first distant sight. Too big as I drew closer…

passersby-4

It was another creature I rarely see out and about, when it should be in the little dam downhill. A longnecked tortoise.

I’d found one near my clothesline a few days before and had put it back in what is really a large waterlily pond, thinking of the long distance to my other dam.

Clearly this tortoise was determined to leave home. This time I respected its instincts and let it be. Just passing by.

I hope it found its destination safely.

Verandah bat

by

On a very hot afternoon last week, I was visited by a tiny representative of a species that I rarely see. Bats.

There are 20 bat species recorded in these mountains, but as I am not a nocturnal animal, I don’t see them. But this one came to me as I worked on my verandah.

It flew up and down the length of the verandah a few times, attracting my attention, and then landed on the narrow strip of mud wall above the window. Far too close to the tin roof for comfort, I’d have thought.

And there it stayed for some hours, flapping its ears periodically. Its clinging power surprised me, as my mud wall’s not that rough.

I found it very hard to work out its features, but I think it’s an Eastern Horsehoe-bat, from the small size and the horseshoe shape of what my book calls the ’noseleaf complex’.

bat-2

About five o’clock it flew to a western end rafter and clung to a bolt. It was still there on dark, but gone in the morning. 

I know almost nothing about bats, but I am delighted to have met this little one, even briefly.

Pigeon swiftie

by

swiftie-1

I’ve posted before about the times I’ve seen the White-headed Pigeons visit me from the rainforest. They’re classed as fruit pigeons.

Last week, from the breakfast table I saw two plump grey birds, waddling up the track in that distinctively nervous way that pigeons have.

They didn’t have white heads or chests, but did have clear chevron-stripes on their chests.

swiftie-2

The pair came up the track to the house, separated, did a little foray up the bank, then turned and sashayed back down the track and out of my life again just as I reached the track with the camera.

The bird book tells me they are ground-dwelling Wonga Pigeons, and what’s more I had noted that on 10/6/03 I had seen three down in the spring gully, probably when I was planting my rainforest tree seedlings.

I’d visited their place, and now a decade later they were dropping in to mine.

swiftie-3

These are very sleek and handsome, their dark grey blue-tinged (to my eye). The book describes them as having a white necklace, but as they were constantly moving and wouldn’t face the front for a photo, it’s hard to show you that. Maybe this rather fuzzy one gives the idea, as the top stripes meet mid-chest. You can also see the pinkish legs and feet in this one.

The speckles below add to the crisp nattiness of their plumage, while the large eyes in the pale shaded head makes them look gentle.

They were seriously shy, so their one swift visit is all the more to be treasured. You certainly have to be on the alert here; you never can guess who will drop by or for how short a time.

Annual visitor

by

For the last three years, each November I have noted in my Gould League Banksias and Bilbies Seasons of Australia diary (a wonderful book, now sadly out of print) that a solo White-necked Heron has visited my little dam.

This year it didn’t come in November.

But in the first week of December, there it was. This time I didn’t spot it first on the dam, but as I came down my verandah steps, I saw it on my solar panel array. Double take!

I ran inside for the camera, muttering ‘Please stay there, please,’ and barely had time to take a photo before it flew off to the nearby dam.

It did its usual slow strut through the water’s edge, skirting the waterlilies and all the life they hide, only this time it was making a call. 

I thought it was a frog at first, but there was only one. It was a repetitive guttural sort of croak. 

Then even from my distance away I saw its throat distend with each croak, as obvious as a swallowed golfball.

My book says it makes noise when startled, which it wasn’t, or on the nest, which it wasn’t. Ideas, anyone?

Sharing the place

by

After all the initial rushing about and media interviews for the new book — ongoing and more to come — I was glad to have a few relatively peaceful days at home with my fellow inhabitants.

As I am still without 240v power until my solar system’s inverter is fixed, I am to-ing and fro-ing between cabin and camper to use the small inverter and two panels there to recharge the laptop.

On the steps, about to dash across once more, I saw the big red-bellied black snake who has been visible somewhere about the yard most days for the last few weeks.

It was under the camper, heading towards one of the wallabies who like to rest there.

They looked at each other for a while (long enough for me to grab the camera) — and then the snake did a U-turn.

Unfortunately it then headed towards the cabin. So I’m on the steps, needing to see where it goes, while saying, ‘Oh please, don’t come this way!’. But it did.

It went under the open steps, so of course I was hoping it didn’t decide to come up through them on to the verandah.

But it came out the other side and into what used to a herb rockery before the coal book lost me my garden altogether.

Immobile, there it stayed for ages — waiting for lunch, I assume. With the days warm but nights cold, I guess it’s fattening up for a winter break.

It’s pretty nerve-wracking having to be so on the alert, with it stretched out and almost invisible in many of the places I’ve seen it, and where I often walk. I wish winter would hurry up!

Royal visitor

by

Down here in my skybowl I have had isolated visits from birds I don’t usually see – just dropping in for a peek at how we poor groundhuggers live.

But I have never had a Wedge-tailed Eagle come calling at the house.

Last week this one flew into my yard and landed in a very large and spreading stringybark tree, just up the hill. The photo was taken from my verandah steps.

It was only there for about five minutes. I don’t know why it came so low and why it landed; the magpies usually hunt them out of our air space quite promptly.

When it took off, I was in awe of its skill in managing those huge and deeply flapping wings between the branches before it could get up and away.

I count this as a royal visit because to me the Wedgies are the kings here, as I wrote in this chapter of Mountain Tails.

Sky lords

A pair of Wedge-tailed Eagles lord it over these mountains, often accompanied by a third, presumably their young one. They circle overhead on the air currents, barely moving a wing. At times so high as to be mere floating specks, at others low enough for me to see their pale hooked beaks and the colours on their plumage; at heights in between, dark silhouettes of the distinctive wedge-shaped tail and the up-curved swoop of wings.

They seem to be the natural kings of the upper sky, effortlessly surfing the invisible currents, crossing from ridge to ridge, watching the clearings in the valleys far below for a rabbit or other small mammal. Their main mode of flight is thus elegantly languid, appearing to be almost lazy, yet it is absolutely economical, perfectly poised, ready to bundle themselves into an aerodynamic lightning bolt to hurtle earthwards after the prey detected by their extraordinary eyesight.

That eyesight is equivalent to mine — if I was using binoculars with 20 times magnification power!

Elaborate aerobatics are also used as foreplay, to impress the female partner. She plays hard to get, feigns nonchalance, now and then surfing the air currents on her back to briefly hold ‘hands’, link claws, with her slightly smaller suitor. When she gives in, her mate helps repair whichever of their several nests they have decided to use that year. She often has two young hatch, but usually only one survives to adulthood — by killing its sibling. So we shouldn’t complain about pushy brothers or sisters; at least they didn’t push us right out of a (probably very high) nest.

Read more

Flash visitor

by

In November two years ago I’d been astonished to see a single White-necked Heron in my small dam down the front.

A week ago I was delighted to see one (it?) again on the bank of that dam.

I did a double-take at the flash of white through the netting of the fence. Grabbing the camera, I moved a little closer, but not too close, and to a higher spot, to see over that fence.

Nevertheless, the Heron quickly took off and flew over the treetops, a strange sight here, although they are apparently a common enough bird. 

Had the fence not been in the way I could have stayed put on the verandah and not startled the bird. That fence is in the process of being dismantled and I can’t wait for the completion of this restoration of the flow between me and the bush.