The House(s) of Fran_mart

Those of a moderate age will immediately have started thinking of Bobby Darin  and indeed that covers the subject matter of this post pretty well.  Procreation. The first element was Frances noticing some small birds flying into a densely vegetated bush carrying lengths of dry grass.  This bush was where I have seen Red-browed Finches nesting in past years (and had seen that species hopping around a couple of days ago).  I set up the scope'n'phone but no birds flew in.  A little later we could see movement but this is all I got as a snap. As I wrote - densely vegetated!  The next day they were still gathering grass for the nest ... .. but I still couldn't get an image of them carrying it back to the nest! Shortly thereafter Frances saw a female Superb Fairywren flitting around with grass in her beak.  No snap available. I then trained the 'scope on an Australian Magpie nest about 100m away. The image isn't great, as the birds seem not to...

When I used to go to circuses as a kid in the UK a common act was a boxing kangaroo.  These days I don't have to leave the house to see such acts.  Although they are usually a bit further away.  Shall we dance?  Does such violence corrupt the mind of innocent bystanders?  Now this set make me wince.  Oooohhhh!  That tingles  The Vulcan Death grip rules. Since there are no bloodstains or corpses on the lawn I assume I can conclude with "No kangaroos were injured in making this blogpost."  (If there were injuries, my response is the Kiswahili phrase "Pole sana" which means "I feel your pain but accept no responsibility for it.")

25 members gathered at the end of Dungowan St in Hawker for a visit to this element of Canberra Nature Park.  After parking satisfactorily we set off led by the local experts Barbara Allan and John Brannan, to whom much thanks is due.  (With their presence I didn't need to refer to a map of which an excellent version is on the website maintained by the  Friends of the Pinnacle .)  Our route is the purple line. We were soon into breeding events with Magpie Lark ON ... (looking closely there appears to be a Wood Duck feather poking out of the nest)  in the magnificent eucalypt beside the road to the homestead.  (Obfuscation added to impede face recognition!0 We set off down the Dowling track noting a number of species of parrots flying over (notably Rainbow Lorikeets) and hanging around in trees with "interesting" hollows (Eastern Rosellas, Red-rumped Parrots and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos).  Proceeding along some members of the party, but unfo...

Over the 9 years I have been aware of the Tawny Frogmouths that nest in our big Yellow Box I have noticed that the male, who does the daytime brooding, gets very agitated when the chicks are hatching.  This view has been confirmed by an ANU researcher who is doing a long term study on the birds in areas of Canberra Nature Park. Looking back at the 8 years for which I have more detailed records suggested that given the date on which he started brooding in 2017 today was the day on which hatching would be due.  This morning he was his usual somnolent self.  However in the afternoon he seemed a bit wriggly and at one point I thought I saw a white bobblehead. That turned out to be a false alarm - watching through my binoculars revealed the white object was an entire egg - but it still indicated that there was some action in hand, so I set up the telescope with attached iPhone on camera function. At first he was quite still.  Then the edginess returned.  (This...

I decided that the time had come to improve the Vinca major infesting the bed outside the sunroom.  In the case of this species "improving" is a term that varies according to perspective and from my perspective involves use of my brushcutter.  I'm trying to work out a way of using glyphosate that doesn't kill all the other plants. I was going pretty well on this until I noticed a couple of lumps in the vegetation. Shinglebacks: Trachydosaurus rugosus . They were initially very close together and I suspect that a small population explosion can be expected quite soon.  By the time I got back they had separated. It was a bit hard to work out which end of the second one was what, but close peering showed it had its head jammed under the rock!

I will begin with some strange posturing by the male Tawny Frogmouth.  Yesterday it went into a very strange position:  After a while it returned to normal. A researcher who is studying the many pairs in the parks near central Canberra has advised that this is normal behaviour, letting the sunlight get into the feathers.  The next day 16 October it was doing some feather maintenance.  I think if you click on the image to expand it you can work out which bit of the bird is what.  This pin oak was being very late in dropping its leaves and was looking at bonsai time (without the spiffy pot).  Then Frances noticed the green shoots all over the upper parts.  I think we'll call it Quercus palustris lazarusii! After than good news I went out to tidy up a log heap.  Apart from anything else it was in a sump where water runs (if we ever get any rain).  In doing this I was very aware of a comment that reptiles like to hide in wood heaps...

While on our recent trip West I became interested in where the land started to rise from the Western Plains up to the Monaro Tablelands (or, more generically, the Southern Tablelands).  The answer turned out to be Gundagai. I then started to think about where the road dropped down again as one heads along the Hume Highway to Sydney.   The answer to that seemed to be about Berrima. Of course this is very much a simplification: I merely took distances and elevations for a few towns/villages along the way and there are some nasty ups and downs within the overall trends.  I have in mind (in particular) a drop down to the Nattai River (or one of its tributaries) out the back of Mittagong! All of this doesn't matter too much rolling along a major highway in a fairly powerful modern car with cruise control.  However it did make me think a little about a friend who is participating in a charity bicycle ride from Perth to Sydney .  That stretch from Gundagai...