The House(s) of Fran_mart

This is most definitely not  about a David Attenborough documentary sponsored by Bill Gates. Rather it is about the native stuff that has been photographed on the glass and flyscreens around our house.  At least until the last item! I will begin with a frog. Although the pupils cannot be seen to be a cross, I am very confident this is a Peron's Tree-Frog.  I had hoped to get a photo showing the diagnostic feature but it leapt from the window on to my groin and - very swiftly, causing me to wonder why my groin was so rejected - thence to the deck. That was late at night.  Early one morning we were visited by a number of Tiger Moths (family Arctiidae , genus Amata ).  Not uncommon but unusual to find in a fairly large group - at least 6 of them.  This image is from inside looking out! I'd like to say I was channeling George Formby but Frances is the ukulele player and thus the one who should be singing " When I was cleaning windows "

There have been many versions of the song " Rock Island Line " which seems to have started as a song by a bunch of prisoners.  The version I have in mind is one by the Weavers .  The particular lines occur about 1:00 into the linked performance: "The 7:45 was always late But arrived today at a quarter to 8. The engineer said, as they cheered his name, We're right on time, but this is yesterday's train." I had expected the chicks to fledge yesterday (6 November) based on the average length of the period after hatching occurred.  Possibly they did, as the nest was empty when I took Tammy out for a comfort break at 21:15.  However that is the first year I have checked the nest in the evening and my standard metric is the first date in which the nest is empty in the morning.  Which is today, 7 November.  So they are a day late. The length of various stages in the process is summarised in this chart: Note: they shifted nest site in 2011 which I didn...

It would be unfortunate if we didn't pay a visit to Floriade and this afternoon was the selected day. We did a few other things as well. Our first stop was the NGA where we checked out a Motherwell exhibition  and a collection of Japanese Kabuki prints.  Both very pleasing.  Of course I didn't take any snaps of the work but thought this scene from onre of the windows had some appeal.  (The hill in the far background is one of those behind our house.)  Walking round to Floriade the Captain Cook Jet was in fine order. It even had its own mini-rainbow!  Once over the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge parking was happening all over the place. And no-one was getting tickets: presumably the sticker-lickers don't work on Saturdays.  I was not impressed to see folk driving along bike paths (and flabbergasted to be told that was OK .if they stuck to less than 10kph! Tulips were the main attraction.  In some beds they had pamsies below th...

As with yesterday I will begin at the end.  This was a performance by Martin Carthy, in my view the biggest name of the Festival.  (I'd rate him with Pete Seeger - of whom more later - except Martin is still with us.)  The performance was as expected, excellent.  Most of his songs seemed to be about death or ships or both, but all delivered brilliantly, both his voice and guitar accompaniment.  During his gig - in the Marquee, the second large venue - the Riff Raff marching band - see below - fired up  outside to which he commented "That's a heck of a ring tone." We had already been in position for a while when Martin started up listening to Luke Plumb and Peter Daffy.  They were also excellent.  I cannot imagine what goes on in Luke's brain remembering the tunes for his mandolin work. Two performers are worth two pictures, but this one also gets in under the spiffy image rule. We started the day with the Rusty Spring Syncopators. ...

Let me begin with the highlight, which was also the final act we saw.  This was the Valanga Khosa band, ..led by (not surprisingly) Valanga Khosa .  From the sound of his surname one would guess he is a Xhosa native speaker but their music came from a number of different South African language groups.  The final number definitely sounded Shangaan to me.  Checking the liner notes of the CD - purchased on Day 2 - reveals that he is actually Tsonga by birth.  A Canberra lad .. ... did an excellent job on Saxophone and other wind instruments, reminding Frances of Jan Garbarek.  Mrs Khosa (Andrea) shared the vocal duties - very well - and showed great skills in the matter of dancing. Towards the other end of the day, ie the beginning, another excellent act was Riley Lee and Jeff Peterson.  Very relaxed and quiet unlike the noise and excitement of the African jive (or come to that, Riley's work setting up TaikOz) much of their work reflected their ...