Sounds and sights of the Season.
A dominant sound of Spring in this area (Southern Tablelands of NSW) is the churring call of a Fan-tailed Cuckoo. This is sometimes followed by a response from another member of the species. That has been going on for a few weeks now.
Today (13 September) I heard the 'fall of tinkling diamonds' call of a White-throated Gerygone for the first time this year.
Some other sounds are man-made. One, heard in our garden this afternoon, is a loudish bang. That is the noise my .410 makes when improving the number of small bunnies around the property. I take less stringent measures with reptiles, but having seen a Bearded Dragon earlier in the week I realised that reptiles with a few (roughly 4) less legs might also be about. So it was time to set out the snake repellers.
This led me to realise that it was time to snap the trees blossoming in the garden; The pink jobbie is an ornamental prunus. (Note also the drift of daffodils behind it.)
We have some peach trees that are a;sp blooming well, and will hopefully set some fruit.
Our fruiting plum trees are also covered with blossom, but in the recent past this has not resulted in much - if any - fruit.
On visiting the upper reaches of the block, primarily to check on the progress of our Cyanicula colonies I found our first Yam Daisy (Microseris lanceolata) of the season
The Leucopogon fletcheri is now in good blossom (note how the tubes all hang down).
Quite a few colonies of L. virgatus (flowers point up) were also found.
Swapping Kingdoms our smallest dam was well supplied with frog spawn. On the subject of the sounds of Spring the frog's generally have been in good voice recently. Near this dam I have used some old car tyres as a flood mitigation device and a Pobblebonk was calling from inside one. This gave a very strange echoing effect.
The most typical Spring sight is the male Tawny Frogmouth zoning out while brooding the egg(s) on the nest.
As a final Spring note, the evening of 15 September was the first since whenever that we haven't had a fire in the evening.
Today (13 September) I heard the 'fall of tinkling diamonds' call of a White-throated Gerygone for the first time this year.
Some other sounds are man-made. One, heard in our garden this afternoon, is a loudish bang. That is the noise my .410 makes when improving the number of small bunnies around the property. I take less stringent measures with reptiles, but having seen a Bearded Dragon earlier in the week I realised that reptiles with a few (roughly 4) less legs might also be about. So it was time to set out the snake repellers.
This led me to realise that it was time to snap the trees blossoming in the garden; The pink jobbie is an ornamental prunus. (Note also the drift of daffodils behind it.)
We have some peach trees that are a;sp blooming well, and will hopefully set some fruit.
Our fruiting plum trees are also covered with blossom, but in the recent past this has not resulted in much - if any - fruit.
On visiting the upper reaches of the block, primarily to check on the progress of our Cyanicula colonies I found our first Yam Daisy (Microseris lanceolata) of the season
The Leucopogon fletcheri is now in good blossom (note how the tubes all hang down).
Quite a few colonies of L. virgatus (flowers point up) were also found.
Swapping Kingdoms our smallest dam was well supplied with frog spawn. On the subject of the sounds of Spring the frog's generally have been in good voice recently. Near this dam I have used some old car tyres as a flood mitigation device and a Pobblebonk was calling from inside one. This gave a very strange echoing effect.
The most typical Spring sight is the male Tawny Frogmouth zoning out while brooding the egg(s) on the nest.
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