The honeyeater migration is underway. As I have gone native, that is, planting species indigenous to my local area, I have been contemplating ripping out all my exotic plants. It doesn’t help that my new neighbour is trying to hedge me in with European plants. This is ‘Straya, I feel like saying.
Anyway, the visiting Yellow-faced honeyeaters have reminded me that it is okay to retain a few of my less weedy exotic shrubs.
I knew it! Everyone loves camellias.
Still, the woodland birds really love the garden changes. They are coming in droves now.
After much silence The twitteratee twitter. Is this my good side?
Perhaps I am anxious. The longer I stay away from this place, the harder it is to make an appearance. Start with something you love is good advice. Who doesn’t love little birds?
Today I thought I would share some fairly ordinary photos in response to the Lens-Artists Challenge hosted by Anne of Slow Shutter Speed this week. For this week’s challenge, Anne has chosen the theme of Filling The Frame. I’ve told myself all I have to do is take the photos. They don’t have to be good. How hard can it be?
Anyway, I’m not a fan of my phone camera so I thought I would take a few photos with that. My phone is mostly stuffed down my bra so it is readily available. With some effort, I could even explore some of the camera functions.
Let’s start off with the garden. Because of our rodent problem we had to fence off some of the backyard from the dogs. Over winter, the warrigal greens consequently managed to populate a good section of the fenced off area. Not bad for a plant that apparently does not like frost. By the way, my True Love managed to evict the rats from the ceiling and wall cavities. Or perhaps it was just too hot for the rats inside the inner recesses. No aircon.
And again. Full frame this time.
I’m feeling a bit like Fynnie. Here he is growling at Makea because she happened to glance his way. I think Fynnie might be depressed or a psychopath.
What else have I got here? Oh yeah, I went to the dentist and took a snap of our city centre while I was in town. Also, I like tiles. The dirt just adds to the patina.
I fiddled with the tone in the phone camera and got something quite true to colour for once. A learning experience.
Thanks to all the gracious people who have put up with my depressed sarcasm. So now for the good stuff in appreciation of your support – a few bird photos taken by my True Love.
When the sign says “Swooping Bird”, one tends to think of magpies or masked lapwings, not Collared Sparrowhawks. This photo was cropped to within an inch of its life. And I thought I was unhappy!
Here it is again a bit further away among the trees that are filling the frame. Beats going to the dentist even if the sparrowhawk does swoop you.
A female Red-Rumped Grass Parrot.
Now the male.
I would like to thank Anne for her choice of theme this week. I really did enjoy it.
Thanks to our neighbour’s wonderful native garden, we have many little birds nesting nearby.
The Superb Fairywrens are up at the crack of dawn collecting nesting materials and hunting insects. They have been incredibly bold bounding around our dog yard.
Here she is.
Here he is.
And a female Golden Whistler also visited today.
Down the road at our park, currawong chicks have already hatched, while the magpies are currently on their nest too. It is all happening.
It is a very different year to last year. It is much drier and hotter. The temperature is forecast to be 35o Celcius next week and we are only three weeks into Spring. Perhaps the rats will leave home then, although it is probably better for the wren chicks if they do not.
Regular readers will know that I have both a fascination for, and dislike of, rats that are not native to Australia. If you told me that the photo below was of a native bush rat, I would say, “Oh, poor thing!” However, if you told me that it was Rattus rattus, I would have no sympathy for it. I would have some sympathy for the magpie though, my first thought being that I hoped the rat wasn’t poisoned lest the magpie die of secondary poisoning.
Anyway, I have been hanging on to this photo for a while, since April actually. I was out walking, contemplating fording some long weedy grass – a wilderness experience – when I caught this magpie acting strangely on the edge of the sports oval. All of a sudden it darted into the long grass (magpies much prefer short grass) and pulled out a rat.
So the long tail tells me that it was Rattus rattus. Do you agree? I suspect it was a dead rat because it didn’t put up a fight and the magpie spent a good minute wondering what to do with it before she flew away with it. It is likely that the rat was poisoned. Or old. Anyway, anyway, there was nothing much I could do about the situation. After that, I decided not to head into the long grass.
You know how I love a good story. I cropped the photo for Show & Tell at my photography group. I think the members quite liked this photo and the story.
This may or may not be my final word on matters rattus. It depends …. Speaking of photography, I submitted some photos for a bookmark that my photography group is producing. I’ve never done anything like that before but why am I in this group if I am not going to participate in the activities? I am keen to know the outcome because I really liked the photos and I would love to share them with you.
Apart from that, my life is pretty ordinary. Given the events elsewhere, this is a good thing.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 