The House(s) of Fran_mart

As readers of this blog will know we have a project of visiting every town in NSW.  In part, a town is defined as somewhere on the Register of War Memorials in NSW.  Dalton meets that criterion so this is an 'official visit'. It is always sad when most of the points of interest are 'former ...'.  However with a population of 100 it is hard to see Dalton supporting several shops these days when it is only 10 minutes from the centre of Gunning. The Anglican Church dates from 1878 and has an official plaque as an historic building. The flower beds in the churchyard were very pleasant.   Other parts of the town were similarly endowed, making the mess of the cemetery even more puzzling. This sign commemorates a famous trotter who came from the area.  As it held various world records the sign is well merited. The scuptures outside the Royal Hotel were amusing. The relatively modern village Hall. The Methodist Church was earlier, by 20 years, than t...

This is one of 3 posts about the  Australian Native Plants Society (ANPS) visit to the village (or, in terms of our project, town) of Dalton.  Links to the others are at the foot of this post: despite the miserable beginning the day was overall magnificent. Early in our time with the ANPS we went on an expedition to Dalton cemetery, about 70 road kilometres North of Canberra.  The display of native plants around the cemetery there was magnificent: it was the first time I felt I could understand the beauty of a blooming grassland.  So I was really looking forward to revisiting the area. Oh dear what a disappointment.  A good proportion of the grass had been mown: are the deceased taking up lawn bowls or billiards?  Of the fringing vegetation approximately 60% had been incinerated for purposes beyond my understanding.  (Taken together with the mistreatment of Mongarlowe Cemetery this makes me wonder whether the level of cerebral activity of cemetery ...

Today has been quite interesting in the things that have been seen here and there today. I will start with an record from there (where there = Kelly's Swamp).  I went back to the swamp to have another go for the Little Bittern but this time was unlucky.  However I did find a Nankeen Night Heron sitting in a willow right opposite the Bittern Hide.  Quite a few photos were taken but I like this one the best as it had its head in view.  The COG Annual Bird Report for 2009-10 notes all records between 24 October and 27 February while the few records from 2010-11 were between 5 October and 23 November.  However I did see 5 of the species a few weeks ago in another part of these wetlands.   The obvious question is whether clearing many of the willows from the Molonglo has simply made the birds that may have always over-wintered here more visible ? Outside Bittern Hide a strange pink flower attracted a Yellow Admiral ( Vanessa itea ). Home on the Ranch t...

On the evening of 22 October Frances cut some flowers of our Dutch Irises as indoor blooms, since we couldn't see them clearly in the garden. The result was rather attractive! It is easy to see how  Van Gogh  was inspired by blue irises. I suspect his examples were flag irises (subgenus Iris ) rather than a 'Dutch' species from the (probably subgenus Xiphium ). I have added this image from the garden with Photinia in the background. After taking that image I looked out the window and was struck by the evening sun striking the huge Yellow Box ( Eucalyptus meliodor a) around which our lawn has been created. Some how this reminded me of paintings by Hans Heysen .  Again there are a couple of differences to the images heading the linked article.  I am pretty sure that is morning light, rather than evening, and the trees are River Red Gums ( Eucalyptus camadulensis ) rather than Yellow Box.  But let us not worry about details! Getting back to the titl...

This will contain most of my burbling about the nesting of the Tawny Frogmouths in 2012.  I showed an image of the first evidence of chicks in an earlier (17 October) post .  I went to check the situation on the evening of 19 October and neither parent was on the nest, but 2 chicks were visible. One outcome of the arrival of the tadpolemouths is that the female is now roosting each day on a close-by Acacia dealbata . In the image she is in her afternoon position on the LH part of the horizontal branch.  Each morning she is huddled against the trunk of the tree about 3m to the right of this position.  It appears she shifts gradually over the morning. On 21 October Frances and I went out about 9pm (ie after dark) with a variety of lights to see if we could get an image of the chicks.  The results were not great. It was interesting to watch the birds flying to and from the nest but I felt we might be disturbing them with the lights, so left promptly. ...