The House(s) of Fran_mart

Unfortunately the competition was for "Least Competent Provider of Client Service"! It is rumoured that this is going to be an Olympic event in Rio and I would have to say that if Australia Post can get a team together (a most unlikely occurence) they would be a lay-down misere for the podium. ( As an aside Australia could get 2 of 3 medals if the Passport Office enters: while I was in the PO, the staff were trying to take an acceptable photo of a 2 year old.  This, totally unreasonably, for a 2 yo required the photograph:  to only include the kid;  mouth must be shut,  must be looking full face at the camera;  ears must be showing,  no hands near face etc etc.   After 2 of the 3 staff on duty had put in 20 minutes on this task the queue for other services was out the door.  The patience of the staff, the mum with the kid and indeed the kid himself was brilliant. ) In my previous post about this odious organisation I dealt with the process of trying to cancel

As 30 October was moderately warm and sunny I thought there was a chance of insects being around.   It was also a bit windy which made photography tricky (as did the constant swooping of a Pied Currawong) but I got a few snaps.  I need to do a bit more work on ID, but here is a work-in-progress. Photinia has got a lot of blossom.  I think this is a beetle, rather than a bug.  A scarab of some sort .  This is a hoverfly: a different species to the very common ones around the place which I have snapped many times already.  I took a picture of this pretty Leptospermum flower.  Only when looking at the image did I realise there is an insect down in the bottom of the flower! The next day some livelier insects were in there!  A Cabbage White dining on a Kiss-me-quick (possibly Centranthus alba ) rather than dumpoing eggs on our brassica!  A day-flying moth: I'll get the Latin later.  A caterpillar on a Eucalyptus viminalis leaf  A small Eucalyptus meliodora

This outing was advertised as showing some unusual plants on the dried out bed of Lake Bathurst.  And so it was made (probably more unusual than advertised in fact). The Lake is best known to me as a site of great importance for birds, especially when it has some water in it.  We'll get to them a tad later, but it also has a number of unusual/threatened plants which are easier to get at when it is dry. 9 members turned up for the outing and I hope that those who dipped out feel a tad sorry for themselves.  Again, a lessee was kind enough to give permission to enter the area. As would be expected from a dry lake flat, it is pretty flat and devoid of trees. The trees on the fringing hill seemed well supplied with birds, including nesting Common Starlings and Tree Martins.  We soon found our first unusual plant in  Wilsonia rotundifolia .  We have not recorded this before on a Wednesday Walk and it is rated as Endangered in NSW. It was far from uncommon in this site!  The

Each year COG mounts a Blitz to cover as many areas in the ACT as possible, with an emphasis on recording birds undertaking breeding activities.  I have focused on the Kowen pine forest area (although this year I pretty much covered native vegetation patches lurking within the pines).  The following snip shows the places I visited: the red line on the Eastern side is the position of the Whiskers Fault (purely for interest - it doesn't seem to affect the birds). This image shows the Molonglo at Blue Tiles picnic area.  At this point it is the border between NSW on the left and the ACT.  At one stage this was a popular spot for picnics on the weekend, but as it is now only reachable (without specific official permission to drive in, which I had) by a fairly rugged 3km walk it is rarely visited.  I recorded 14 common species here in 20 minutes. Very close to Blue Tiles is a peninsula with rather different habitat - mainly a dry rocky ridge.  I recorded 14 species here - some dif