The House(s) of Fran_mart

One day last week our lawn was graced with a Red-necked Wallaby. Of the 3 common local macropods this is the least frequent on the lawn.  As can be gathered from its pose, it didn't hang around for long. Yesterday (28 October) was the day of COG's annual Bird Blitz of the ACT.  As I had various other duties my input was a tad abbreviated this year - but at least I got out, unlike last year.  I visited three sites. The first was the Kowen Pound: this is a Travelling Stock Reserve which is no longer on a road, and judging by what I saw yesterday has no food for the stock if any happened to pass by.  I recorded 15 species of birds there: none unusual and none in extraordinary numbers.  As I was leaving I noticed one eucalypt (possibly E. meliodora ) in blossom.  No birds were visiting it.  The next tree had a flowering mistletoe (I think Ameyena miqueli ) which did have some birds and I thought I might be scoring Mistletoebird.  It wasn't that exciting, turning ou

Bunda St. The big progress there is that we have exchanged contracts.  This means we are very locked in, as are the vendors.  I think we will own the place on 25 November. We got a surprise late in the piece when it emerged they had leased one of their car parking spots to someone from the Public Service!  They were getting $50 a week, which would be good value for the lessee as most (insecure) parks are $20+ for 6 hours or more.  However we didn't at this stage want to have one of our parks taken up.  Our solicitor, Judy Morris, was on to this and that deal was deleted  in a couple of hours. Whiskers Creek Rd We got a Building Inspector round to look at the place.  This was David Navarro of ACTBIS , recommended by our agent.  Here he is on the job: His conclusions were: the place is structurally sound (a couple of minor issues but the place is OK for ~30 years old); no termite problems - in fact he was very positive about the capping on the piles and treatment o

On Sunday 21 October the male Tawny Frogmouth was a bit restless on the nest.  I usually take this as a sign of the eggs beginning to hatch.  He was VERY wriggly on Monday.  Taking Sunday as the start of the process it was a 27 day incubation period, whereas I have usually recorded 28 days.  In other words all in normal. On Wednesday 24th I found some broken eggshell on the ground (a confirming physical sighting).  Today I actually sighted a chick  see red arrow in second digiscoped image below.  A nest has to be maintained and here is Dad shuffling a few twigs around.

We have a few flowers around the place at the moment so here are some photos of some of them.  Please excuse the abbreviated names! The first two are container plants.  This is a bromeliad ...  .. while with this one I can do no better than succulent.  Fortunately Sandra (see comment below) can suggest Echeveria sp .  Our first iris: there are some buds on others but this is the first to actually show petal.  The dutch irises are doing much better.  The Euphorbias are doing nicely in a garden bed.  Polyanthus continue  to look nice by the back door. This white bush - you should excuse the technical term - makes a pretty focal point outside the kitchen window.  Sandra again comes to the rescue: Philadelphus sp Finally one I can give two words to.  A crab apple!  Usually the flowers arrive before the leaves.  This year the leaves came first.

A few uimages etc which I need to publish to link to. On 14/10 the Weatherzone radar looks promising. Unfortunately that came to nothing - if 1.8mm fits into your definition of nothing! For the weekend of 20th-21st the BoM and Weatherzone both promised great things. If we get the median amounts (15 and 8mm) that would be very good.  If we get the amounts that are 25% likely (25 and 20mm) it would be brilliant.  That would be especially good if it came with some lightning to drop a bit of nitrate fertiliser on the lawn! The Weatherzone radar doesn't look too promising early on the 20th!  The system seems to be slipping to the SE! For an alternative view I looked at the BoM Satellite imagery  (note that is a real-time site so will not look the same when you look at it) and that was more promising. \ It was in fact very pleasing that there was no rain around 10:30 to 1130 as that gone the drone videoing out of the way in sunny weather.   This was the situation at 1130

One of the proposals our agent (John Sneddon of McGraths, Dickson) put forward was to use a drone to take some  video of the place.  That seemed like a good idea so we took that on board.  I alerted neighbours to the possibility of a drone being around in case they needed to attend to skittish livestock etc but I don't think it would have fussed anyone. We started by the pilot (Mick) and I heading up to the top paddock to deal with that part of the block.  On route we shifted the first Shingleback I have seen this year.  I was astonished at how compact the machine was.  It all fitted in this small carrying case.  The apparatus in Mick's hand is the control mechanism.  Basically managed by an iPhone!  We have lift off ...  .. and go higher ....  ... and higher.  Mick was particularly keen to get some video of the top dam ....  .. and got right down to it.  Here is the console with the iPhone in position.  I was very impressed with the way Mick was able to