The House(s) of Fran_mart

The ANPS walk to day went to the Gale Precinct off the Old Cooma Road, immediately to the South of the current limit of  suburban development.  This area is managed by Queanbeyan Landcare in association with the Council. Proving that even I can learn from past mistakes I will begin by commenting that there were a bunch of Acacia species brightening the area up more than somewhat today.  Let us begin with Acacia genistifolia : this is getting close to the prickliness of the African Acacias (which we now know are not 'really' Acacias at all but a different genus- yet to be named). Next we have another spiky number Acacia ulicifolia .  Note that although prickly the spikes are much less unpleasant than those of the previous species. With average luck this next one is Acacia rubida .  This seemed to be getting the good nectar seal of approval from various insects.  Unfortunately it was a tad draftyand I couldn't get a good shot of the various arthropod...

As the seasons seem to be advancing it is quite likely that a few of the nature posts (in particular) may get updated a bit.  Thus this post will be published at the end of the month to let people see those posts. Pictures of orchid leaves added to the buds post More photos of blossom added as it was encountered. How our MP chooses his name gets explained . The outcome of the weather forecast investigation has been added.  A follow up was added to the convoys post. I have finally added tables of  plants identified on our property thus far to my ReVegetation and Vermin blog.  There are separate tables for Monocotyledonous and Dicotyledonous plants.  This blog also got some material about pigs and serrated tussock and updates on rabbit control . I felt the post about mattocking warrens had some redeeming humour. I will also plug in here a couple of links to other items which don't really merit the overhead of a full post.  The first two come f...

A friend who blogs from both Westchester and The Abacos (in the Bahamas) has just posted a report on Irene's visit to the Abacos and her imminent arrival in New York .  She has posted a few other reports with some interesting video including Willie Nelson singing a suitable song.  Call me a traditionalist, but if you aren't going for Leadbelly (as recorded by Alan Lomax) the Weavers must be the next choice. I am taking this opportunity to send wishes for good luck to all on the East Coast of the US and to second Denis's comment (see below) extending concerns to those in Canada. Here is a radar image for NYC and surrounds at 0353 EDT on 28 August.  The city is close to the middle of the image in the red box, meaning tornado warning. Here is a National Weather service warning screen for a few minutes later. To put this in context, the image below shows the evacuation zones for mid-town.  Our apartment in New York was at the blck X.  The yellow - Zone C - ar...

During the monsoon of last Summer part of our vegetable garden got seriously flooded.  In part this was due to a drain pipe running across the garden bed having been punctured by injudicious forking about.  So I decided to try to fix this situation. Two options presented themselves: The original position of the pipe is marked as a blue dashed line, with X marking the spot of the puncture. One option was to simply cut out the punctured bit and replace it.  The second option was to put in a new pipe where the red dotted line ran.  I decided that the effort involved in the second option was likely to be huge, especially given the number of roots likely to be encountered going under the fruit  trees so plan 1 was the go. The ? indicates that I couldn't work out where it went after that without a large amount of effort.  Possibly under this!  Oh poop! After a little bit of ferreting around (where the mob from Time team when you need them?) I was a...

Earlier snaps are here and there .  These birds are too photogenic.  As a birding friend said, it is astonishing how much time one could spend looking at them!  Here are some shots from 26 August (10 days after hatching.) I think I spent most of the time from 0645 to 0815 getting these, hoping to see a parent deliver fish.  Alas that happened while we were taking Tammie for a walk and when we came back Mum, doing the feeding, completely shaded S2. Here is Dad feeding S2 on 29 August. I didn't access the cam much for a couple of days, but the first day of Spring was celebrated with an extended bout of feeding.  At one point the thought did occur to me that, having killed S1 by dropping a dead pigeon on it, the parents were trying to repeat the trick on S2 with a large eel. By 5 September S2 is getting quite large and also elastic in the neck department. Judging by the pose, and the way it is stretched out, I suspect someone has...

On this day of brilliant weather - it definitely felt like Spring - we had a lovely walk around Wanniassa Hill, returning via the lower slopes of Farrer Ridge.  Here is a panorama from about the lunch spot (click to see the bigger image). The start of the walk was a rhapsody in white.  The first flowers were swathes of Leucopogon attenuatus . A little later this was joined by Cryptandra amata . Although both look white in the single images, when swathes are seen together the latter species is 'creamier'. Somewhat later in the walk a single flower of Leucopogon virgatus was encountered.  The third Leucopogon ( L. fletcheri ) was resolutely in bud. Moving towards the blue end of the spectrum we had much Hovea linearis and occasional samples of the mass of Stypandra glauca were in flower.  Hardenbergia was everywhere but not photographed.   Various species of Acacia were very evident.  The one below is A. genistifolia . I rather liked this poor...