The House(s) of Fran_mart

This blog. A comment about blowflies added to the unseasonal sightings . In addition to the screen capture processes described in a post and comments thereon I have discovered (in "Windows 7 for Seniors for Dummies") that there is an accessory program called Snipping Tool which lets you capture part of a screen as either a rectangle or - really usefully - a free-form area such as  The scat situation appears to have been resolved to YTBC. Other blogs: Another snake tale at Kithulgala has been added. As several folk have had trouble finding their way through the Sri Lanka blo g I have added a 'read on' link at the end of each chronological post. Sunsets As a reward for reading this post you get to see the spiffy sunset clouds from 20 June! Also this nice cloudscape from 22 June.

Late this afternoon I went for a wander round the block to see what is happening on the day before carbon gets priced.   Quite a bit of interesting stuff was evident. Frances had expressed a desire to draw a Goodenia flower if such could be located.  She had abandoned her own search as the weather was as cold as  ...  something very cold.  I didn't find any of that genus (a slight surprise as I was sure I had seen in the recent past) but I did find this Acacia gunnii glowing in the afternoon sun.  That is pretty much on schedule as A. gunnii and A, genistifolia (the latter is not on our block) are the early species in this area.  It was a major surprise to find this Leucopogon fletcheri in flower.  However out of the several thousand specimens on the block only this single plant was blooming.  I guess that is competitive advantage being tested: this plant either gets a small jump  on the others for having seed ready earlier or the next heavy frost kills its flowers and it do

I have in the past included some images of sunsets at our place.  This morning I happened to glance up and noticed the sun rising  so decided to stop being timeist and cover the front end of the day as well. In these first two shots the sun is still behind the ridge and the light is just hitting the higher clouds. A few minutes later and Mr Sol begins to emerge. The next three images show it rising through the mist. To complete a very pleasing 5 minutes an Eastern Yellow Robin then appeared and posed nicely for a misty impressionist portrait!

Walking up our drive today I noticed a lot of white objects under a Pinus radiata.  Peering more closely I discovered that they were scats, all of a similar size and nearly all topped with a layer of white. I placed one on a sheet of paper to get a better look at it and the structure appeared to be a thin coil with the white layer deposited on top.   This sample which was about average size (and they were pretty consistent) was 18mm across the whole disc.   This probably makes the individual coils about 3mm thick.  It appeared that they were coming down from the tree above them.  This idea was supported by finding a bunch of the discs about 1.5m above the ground trapped in some needles. I scrutinised the trees in the vicinity quite thoroughly but couldn't see any wildlife that might have done this dirty deed.  Any suggestions as to what it might be will be most welcome. My initial thoughts were along the following lines: Birds tend to splat more than this; Mammals

This post is a follow-up to my post about our walk yesterday that got a little exciting at the end.  I have decided that it is useful to have a record of the event, but being concerned to protect privacy I have obfuscated people's faces in the following set of pictures. When I initially contacted 000 (on my mobile phone) there was some confusion about where we were: their first match with "Red Rocks Gorge" was Jindabyne - about 135km SW of our location - and then Shoalhaven - about 150km NE.  Once we had that sorted they put me on to the ACT people and we soon had things happening.  After some discussion about exactly where we were and how to get an ambulance in I got another call from Craig, a pilot with Southcare.  He seemed quite familiar with where we were and asked if we had distinctive clothing.  I said no, generally drab! Then I realised I was wearing a red skivvy under my jacket so rang him back to tell him to look for that.  He suggested I wave when they ca

Today the ANPS Wednesday Walkers revisited Kambah Pool, but headed South to Red Rocks.  I took a lot of photos, so this might be slow to load! There were few flowers around so I started taking photos of buds. A view has been expressed that Brachyloma buds are actually more attractive than the flowers!    Acacia rubida was very evident. When we got down close to the Red Rocks Gorge A. doratoxylon was quite evident.  This is the only ACT member of the genus with rod shaped flowers.  This is of course the season for Cryptandra buds..  .. while Eucalyptus dives was up in the air.   Cassinia longifolia was looking unusually attractive for a species sometimes known as cauliflower bush  and Pomaderris augustifolia looked like a Pomaderris (nudge nudge, 'nuff said, know what I mean?) There was a lot of Grevillea juniperina along the track, most still in bud.  This was the biggest sample I saw in this condition. Roger has advised that is is probably a gall