The House(s) of Fran_mart

This is just to start some posts about our move to an apartment in Civic. Or Canberra City or 'City" or Canberra - I really can't determine what the area is called, but it the centre of Canberra on the Northern side of Lake Burley Griffin. This first image puts the building in the neighbourhood context.  The second gives an idea of the views to the West and North. Point 1 is Mount Coree; Point 2 is (I think) One Tree Hill; and Point 3 is the northern end of Mt Majura. Home (ie former home at Carwoola) is not visible although from some angles Taliesin Ridge, immediately behind it, is. The distant view of the area between the purple lines is blocked, mainly by Black Mountain, but with an assist to the NE by the high rise across Akuna street.  Distant views to the ENE (roughly a line from the house to Point 3) are also blocked in this case by Mounts Ainslie and Majura. This view looks across North Canberra and Gungahlin to One Tree Hill. The large lump o...

A couple of days ago I posted a photo of a Cunningham's Skink on our deck. I knew at that time that one was hanging out in our garage and I assumed it was doing a good job of controlling the flies in there.  However, what goes in must come out:  This is a typical reptile turd with the white blob of guanine on the tip.  (In Tanzania that was crucial, since it distinguished gecko (= mjusi) crap from rat (=panya kubwa)  poop.)  There was getting to be a fair bit of this around so I decided that Mr Skink had to go. This image is a mudmap of our garage.  The green line is the route of the rout! Point 1 is this set of shelves, which are normally full of stuff and set back against the wall.  I knew Mr Skink was behind that so took all the stuff off.  In fact he was right up the top and  when I cleared it off he bolted behind the cupboard visible in the background (point 2). After shifting the cupboard out a bit The Skink was spotted cl...

At a community gathering one of our neighbours told me that she had breeding Satin Flycatchers on her property which surprised her as her field guide suggested they were birds of damp forested gullies, not the open woodland of her property.  She gave a pretty good description referred to the iridescent blue colouring. This got me more than a little excited and a couple of days later I met her and watched the nest, occupied by a female Flycatcher.  On looking at the photos my overall impression of the bird was that on the back it was a "bit light" in colour to be a Satin Flycatcher, but I couldn't be sure.  So it was entered in eBird as a spuh "Leaden/Satin Flycatcher".    The male bird was steadfast in refusing to appear in the time I had available. So a couple of days later I went back, this time with my telescope (but not the phone connection - probably a mistake).  As I got to the site a bird flew from the nest and another one took over.  Pro...

On our way back from Foxlow Lagoon we saw a few Woodswallows along Plains Rd,  The photos I took - other than the Masked Woodswallow above - were generally disappointing so I went back for another go.  This time I found the huge main flock.  Many of them were feeding on the ground. In case you wondered about the pattern n the underwing of a White-browed Woodswallow! Some were perching - for reasons I couldn't establish:  they didn't seem to be eating anything and didn't roost but moved off quite quickly  in surrounding trees including Pinus radiata .. .. and a small dead eucalypt. Yet more were in a cypress windbreak. As indicated above most were feeding in a large flock on the ground About half the birds took off at one point and by counting as I placed dots in this image ... I found that I had included 205 birds in the photo.  Assuming this to be half the feeding birds, I estimated there were at least another 100 in the sur...

I will start by admitting that I am possibly stretching the definitions of both 'natural' and 'Carwoola', but its my blog! The starting point is to repeat a photo from my Facebook page, under the spiffy image rule.  This shows 3/4 of the Tawny Frogmouth family.  Mum rarely visits the nest in daylight and I couldn't find her at all today. Having a little time to spare I went to visit the community land at Molonglo River Park  It was good to see that someone has been planting new shrubs there.  On getting to the billabong it was good to see an Australasian Grebe in full breeding plumage, and a nice reflection.  A male Australian Wood Duck (and snakey friend) A female Australian Wood Duck (and snakey friend)  The Wood Ducks get their act together.  Refraction got in the way somewhat in this image, but hopefully you'll be able to see a rather large - at least 60cm long - European Carp swimming by.  Judging by the splashing sounds they...

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 p...