The House(s) of Fran_mart

In Australian political speech "double dipping" is usually when someone whose beliefs don't match yours appears to claim 2 benefits rather than the one to which they may be entitled.  A great example arose with maternity leave where the conservative Government offered a scheme but didn't exclude people already getting benefits from their employer.  The Labour Party, in Opposition, jumped up and down both on general principles because many of their members didn't have the employer benefits.  (There are occasions where all Parties adopt a Nelsonian approach as for example where an MP or Senator - other than those representing the ACT - claims travelling allowance while owning a residence in Canberra.  That's not double dipping that is just claiming your due entitlement.) In birding it means to miss out on a bird you are looking for.  Sean Dooley gives some extreme examples in Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola.  He describes double dipping as missing out on the s...

The weather forecast for the evening of the 27th promised rain.  You may remember it - wet stuff that fell from the sky back in the day.  About 20:00 the radar looked promising:  By 2030 this had amounted to a massive 0.2mm!  There seemed to be steady rain later in the evening with 3mm to midnight and then another 6.4mm by 5am.  Well done that cloud. However as is often the case this attracted wildlife to my study window.  What first caught my attention was a Peron's tree frog sticking on to the glass at the bottom of the pane. This led me to look at the insects also there.  As well as the many small moths there was an array of other families.  I have tried to ID them using Insects of South Eastern Australia   and A Field Guide to Insects in Australia  I can't work out the first one at all. Fortunately Roger Farrow, author of the first book linked above has been able to do so - and both are in his book, as referenced belo...

I started a tad early as I haven't been doing the training but was pleased to find that for possibly the only time in history I caught Jimmy White not too long after the start.  He will re-appear later in this post. I do not mind females going past me in runs: these days it's situation normal. So this bunch of happy souls caused no angst.  However, when a 4 month (or thereabouts) old goes past its a worry.  Sam said "You'll catch me on the hills."  Yeah, right.  Here is the first hill: the pusher is just visible. A few minutes, and several metres vertically, later the pusher is even more visible even though its so far away I have had to put in an arrow to highlight it! It was a rather grouse day overall, although those of us of a rural persuasion wouldn't mind a few more clouds in the sky!  As I started the final downhill Jimmy came past me, saying that he'd decided to catch me while I was walking up hill, but then I started running again....

I meant to start with a quote from T S Eliot's poem "The Wasteland" but couldn't find anything really suitable.  So I checked out his "The Hollow Men"and if one was looking for a description of the suburb of Coombs struck gold straight away: Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion. Or further into the poem: In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley The broken jaw of our lost Kingdom. Back in the day Canberra's highest profile running track started at a spot off Cotter Road and went in various directions through mature pines.  As the rulers of Canberra at that time wouldn't name a road after a living person the running community decided that the forest road starting at this point would be named Deeks Drive.  They put up a sign to that effect and someone souvenired it within 24 hours.  The name stuck and was eventually commemorated with a huge official sign and a palatial toilet (which had a ...

Despite the continuing howling gale I got out to wield the fork a bit today.  As our vegie garden is still unfenced this wielding happened in an area which I had put some chook wire round to keep the wildlife out. As I dug a bed for snow peas I found some welcome wildlife was evident. OK, earthworms aren't very wild, but they are very welcome as they do a good job of working over the soil.  Quite a few were dug up, implying the soil was in pretty good condition. The first asparagus spears have emerged.  Yummo!  I think this is a viable bud on one of the grape vines.  If so, it will be a miracle!  Ditto this shooting stone fruit (the upper parts of the stem are gone but a bit of training and this will be fine!)  If only I could remember what it was!  Blackcurrants can apparently survive!  As can an apple tree!  (Other parts of the tree might require a little pruning.)  An ongoing form of entertainment is clearin...

It usual to focus on weather which is the obvious extreme of the variable being considered.  By this I mean the highest maximum temperature or the lowest minimum temperature.  However today I have looked at variations on this theme with highest minimum temperature and lowest maximum temperature. The catalyst for this was the overnight minimum this morning (24 September) being 12.4 o C, which is the highest minimum temperature recorded for Carwoola in September since records started in 1993.  (There are of course issues about day-minima vs overnight minima, and it is possible the temperature will drop below 12,4 by midnight thus reducing my recorded minimum for the day, but it is still notable.  I shall return to this point below)  This follows the maximum on 23 September of 29.2 o C which was definitely a new high temperature (or maximum maximum) for the month.  So at least there is some consistency. This chart shows the maximum minimum for each mont...

In the past week I have added 6 species to my Garden Bird Chart for the year.  Some of them are migrants while others are just birds getting noisy and thus more visible. However the point of this post is the growth that is happening with many of the plants we were given as assistance to regenerate the garden after the fire.  Thank you so much to the people and businesses which donated the plants: it is really pleasing to see things coming to life, especially after the appallingly dry weather we have experienced since March. Here are some pix (I may add to this later, but had to expedite matters this morning). The label on this tree has faded but it starts with 'Zelk' so I think it may be a Zelkova: if so it is going to need some pruning in later years as they get to 20m! It is possibly unpromising to put an unknown-species tree early in the post but this is just beginning to get swelling the buds.  A couple of snaps of what I think is a maple.  I like the...

The pair of Tawny Frogmouths which roost (most of the year) in our garden have yet again built a nest in the Big Yellow Box - Eucalyptus meliodora , not something from Playschool. They were the latest starting of any year since I started recording full details in 2010.  There are a range of observational snafus  (I found that link really helpful) for several years: I was actually aware of the nest in 2008, but the male was already in situ by that time.   For 2009 I noticed the skinny platform of twigs before a cloaca was placed upon it, but as brooding started 3 days later I had clearly missed the commencement. of the process.   2011 marked a shift to a different tree.  I only realised this when the male went AWOL and I found him sitting on a nest about 40m away. In 2014 they were back in the old tree and I thought twigs started to be gathered very early.  However brooding started "on time" so I think the early start was just some windblown twigs f...