The House(s) of Fran_mart

Today we traveled in the general direction of Oallen Ford and then swung off to a private property a few klicks off the bitumen to a private property.  Many thanks Penny and Peter  for hosting us at your place. The weather forecast for Windellama shown on MetEye looked pretty good, but I think it was in fact somewhat better being slightly warmer. Once into the property we were on the sandy terrain familiar around this area.  This first image shows the general nature of the undergrowth  (and indeed overgrowth).  Later in the day we got on to some dry granitic ridges with a somewhat sparser vegetation (but still with many goodies as will be revealed.  (At one point I looked across the Shoalhaven Valley and believe I could see a limestone cliff a la Bungonia so obviously a wealth of geology.) When I say wealth I should mention the history of gold mining in the area.  This hand-dug shaft was at the extremity of our foray. Getting to the important stuff first I some found

As the reports of Superb Parrots had stepped up in Canberra on 28 October my friend Garry and I visited the site on the Hoskinstown Plain where they have been seen in the past to check on developments.  We didn't find any Superbs but were rewarded with a lot of other 'stuff'.  As my images from that trip were worse than usual I dropped back for a further foray on the 29th to redress the situation.  What follows is  composite of both visits. The striking feature as we approached was heavy blossom on some Eucalypts. Closer examination of the leaves showed these to be Eucalyptus pauciflora which in my circles is referred to as 'snow gum'.    In some references I have seen the vernacular name of this species given as White Sallee, and snow gum used for E. debeuzvillei and E. nitophilia .  That's why plant people end to stick to the Latin!  The E. pauciflora were the first trees (other than plantings) encountered when moving up from the frost hollow gras

Also MIA were Dasher, Dancer, Comet, Cupid, Prancer and Vixen . Those who know the rituals of COG will expect that the annual Blitz (apparently the German word may have a terminal 'en' in which case it is neuter - tough luck, reindeer - or not, in which case it is masculine) is undertaken in the last weekend of October.  (T he linguisticc stuff there came from the internet.  More reliable information came from a German friend who advised that "blitz" is a noun for the lightning flash wile "blitzen" is a verb meaning to flash - like lightning not the trench-coat brigade. ) Organising this is done by our friend Barbara Allen, and the success of the exercise is a tribute to her. The aims are to cover as many of the 5' grid cells of the COG Area of Interest within the ACT as possible; and focus on breeding activity. For reasons that escape me now I have taken to reporting on the Kowen Forest area to the East of Queanbeyan (but still in the ACT.  Th