Spring's things

Spring is defiintely in the air, the soil and the water.  On this day of the election in Australia I thought I would post about a few things seen and/or heard in the vicinity of our house.

We have been doing a bit of gardening.  It is pleasing to find a large number of worms, mixing up and aerating the soil and making the vegetable matter accessible to later vegetable matter as fertiliser.
We also found a small frog burrowed into the soil.
 It didn't hang around very long and my second attempt at a photo isn't that good, apart from showing the astonishing length of its legs, compared to its body!
Moving on to birds, the Frogmouths have laid eggs and the old bloke is well esconced on the nest, where he will remain for the next several weeks.  This is back in the 'old' nest site after 2 years in a tree about 70m away.

Migrant birds are returning with the first Grey Fantail  and Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo heard in the morning of the 7th.  A Fan-tailed Cuckoo was calling on the 8th.
Last year I first noticed the blue Cyanicula caerulea orchids on the 9th of September but my post notes that we had been away for a few days.  This year I first saw them on the 6th, but I suspect that means they are just about on time.  On the 7th I counted the flowers and there were 62 in the main colony with a few smaller groups totalling to about 12 more, in the same general area.

The other botanical news here is that the Leucpogon flethcheri has started to bloom in profusion.

The second image shows the range of colours in the flowers and particularly the 'beard' (pogon is Latin for beard).

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