The House(s) of Fran_mart

The first source of dampness was the top of our house pump getting frozen, and subsequently thawing.  This manifested itself as water running out of the top of the pump s soon as I turned it back on.  As it only ran for about 10 minutes before I spotted the problem only a few litres of water got spread around.  I suspect that had we left the pump powered when we went away it may have spurted for several days (or however long it took 50 kilolitres to run out) However our pump specialist, Mark Taylor was round at sparrow fart (his words - I know there are no sparrows round here) and fixed it up. The second source of dampness was the sky.  Here is the Weatherzone take on the Captains Flat radar as at 0630 on the morning of 28 June. Here is a snip from their NSW/ACT radar at 1500.  A second serve appears imminent - but then it has been ominous since about noon The first lot delivered 11.4mm here (16mm at a site a few km away and a bit higher).  The am...

This morning the weather finally got its act into gear and had just the right amount of cloud to give a nice sunrise. We packed in a very relaxed fashion and as a result we still around when the recycling truck came by, and were able to reclaim the empty bin.  The garbage truck comes by about 6am so is not a problem. For some reason I was still relaxed as we drove off and the twisty road to the Gypsy Point cemetery was handled in a way much appreciated by the passengers.  Chunderpooch was not evident. I started to get a bit of life in me as we headed up the Princes Highway.  Nothing of great interest was observed until we started to get near Imlay Road where haze was evident. My suspicion is that a Habitat Reduction Burn was happening between Imlay Rd and Eden.  This didn't bother us and we rumbled off towards Bombala.  We'd speculated about the likely temperature at Nimmitabel, with Frances going for 9 and me for 7.  Both were looking unlike...

Our plan had been to head home on 26 June as an irrigation guy was due there on the 27th for the last major subproject of bush fire recovery.  However it turned out he wasn't coming until the 29th so we could grab an extra day out of the heavy frost.  As I had let the fire die out at Mallacoota (so I could clean out the stove before we left) it felt quite cold (4 o C outside, 8 o C inside) there! The sky was clear but there was still some good colour along the horizon.  We had begun the day with out usual short walk along the Inlet to the Park boundary.  A couple of items of interest were another 2 Bassian Thrush at Schnapper Point Drive and lots of Rainbow Lorikeets and Honeyeaters in some flowering eucalypts up on the ridge. On return we found out about the bonus day, so I took another short walk to check out the flowering gums.  Here is the blossom.  I had my telescope set up to take photos with my phone and got a few close-ups of a dinin...

When we lived in Tanzania and went game viewing Frances scolded me for saying "Just another Impala" and reminded me how excited we'd been to watch one give birth.  Also in Tanzania the safari guides were reputed to call the exquisite Lilac Breasted Roller .... ...  "Just ABR" for Just Another Bloody Roller.  On this trip it has become "Just another Bassian Thrush"  We have seen at least 2 more today in new locations, so the incursion covers at least Karbeethong to past Betka Beach. When/if eBird comes back to life it will be interesting to see where recent sightings have been made.  There is a cluster around Cape Conran (West of Mallacoota) of which a couple are personal hotspots, suggesting a new bird has been seen there. There has been no response yet to an enquiry to birding-aus. The morning walk delivered another Bassian Thrush close to one of the sites from earlier in the trip, but otherwise it was quiet.  Our mid-morning walk was to the be...

Today began well with a selection of White-headed Pigeons drinking from the gutter. They were being watched from a clump of mistletoe!  There's a bear in there !  It was a bit hard to pick it out, but earlier in the morning it was clearly seen further out on a limb, chowing down on some leaves. A Superb Lyrebird was in (what is becoming) its core habitat of a roadside gutter.  I assume this is because the litter that accumulates there is replete with invertebrates, and is easy to kick about. Later in the day as I drove out I noticed a couple of strange grey and white spotted 'things' beside the road.  On stopping to look there were pink bird legs attached.  By the time I had got my camera organised  it had resolved to 2 Wonga Pigeons. I'm not sure if this was display or aggression and have thus refrained from referring to them as a pair. My objective was to do a bit of sea-watching as there was forecast to be a fairly strong SW wind, which mig...