October and summer hastens toward us

 Its been getting warmer in Emerald but wetter too, much wetter than normal according to the locals. Over one weekend, apart from some pretty impressive lightening storms that had Tolkien shivering in the bed next to me, we had 240 ml in the weather gauge with similar amounts recorded around town. Now one could argue that this big splash of water will have affected my ollas experiment, and undoubtedly it did, but things dry out very quickly here and whilst other plants required daily watering the seedlings near the Ollas thrived.

The before shot

Add water

and about 5-weeks later...

The turnip seeds around the Ollas are looking healthy

and the Zucchinis are belting along

Unfortunately the Bitter Gourds didn't show at all, so I shall have to retry that experiment.

Emerald and its locale is continuing to throw up interesting birds and beasties for me to admire. This one caught me by surprise as I was about to do my dhobi (laundry for non-Marines) 

Larry the lizard

Interesting critter

I have been spending some time up on Fairbairn dam wall trying to improve my ariel photography which has been sort of fun and sort of frustrating,

Whistling Kite

Marbled Teal

Nankeen Kestrel

Whistling Kite

Gull-billed Tern

Tern

Nankeen Kestrel

Silver Gulls and a deceased Barramundi

A snack for an Australian Raven

An ancient Darter

A Black Kite

The Whistling Kite

Meanwhile, back at the house...

A gaggle of Apostlebirds

A cute Fairy Martin

The Singing Honeyeater

and a Crested Pigeon

and that's about it for now.

Spring, Summer, Wet, Dry....

 Things can geta bit confuddling up here as the seasons are not so pronounced. Not really the four seasons from down south or in Europe, but nor the two wet and dry of the tropics. It's kind of fuzzy so I'm just having to learn as I go along.  One thing I do know is that the summers here are long and usually pretty dry. Water is metered in Emerald and I understand the bills can be high so watering your garden can be an expensive hobby. So first up I'm planning on gradually getting rid of most of the lawns, not much use anyway. That will take some time but after researching on You Tube I've come up with some more immediate projects.  First off, Ollas. Ollas (Spanish term) refers to earthenware pots that are dug into the ground and filled with water so that they slowly sweat irrigation into the surrounding soil.  Really good as the water is less affected by evaporation and targeted to where you want it so here we go...

Step 1 is to glue the pots upside down into their saucers making a waterproof seal with a silicon glue and then strengthen the structure by applying mortar between the pot and saucer.  Easy to do but a little time consuming as the mortar needs a week or so to dry properly.

Now place the pots out providing an irrigation diameter of about 2' for each Olla.

 

Next step is to dig them in ensuring there are no air bubbles around the pot. Do this by soaking the soil around them and so collapsing any hollows.

Now we fill the pots with water and stopper them with a cork or a stick. The only thing left to do is plant and apply mulch. I've planted Bitter Melon seeds to start with and I'll be adding a variety of vegetable seedlings as they grow. We'll look in on them in the future and see how they go.

Onto the birds....

My list of Emerald birds is growing as I've found Weebills (Australia's smallest birds) and nesting in one of the palms are a pair of White-breasted Woodswallow. Old familiars from down south have shown up including Figbirds and Sacred Kingfisher. 

Weebill with cobwebs

White-breasted Woodswallow

Sacred Kingfisher

Figbirds (male with red eye patch)

Grey-crowned Babbler

It is surprisingly noisy around the house, particularly during the dawn chorus  period, when Willy Wagtails lead the morning choral. They are often joined by the Brown Honeyeaters, Olive backed Orioles and Figbirds along with the Rufous Whistlers. Anyone who tells you that Australian birds don't sing can be safely ignored!

Willy Wagtail

Spotted Bowerbird

Juvenile Brown Honeyeater

The yellow at the crease of the bill indicating that this is a juvenile honeyeater.

 

Double-barred Finch

Juvenile Rufous Whistler

Female Rufous Whistler

Superb Fairy Wren (male)

Superb Fairy Wren (Female)

Juvenile Pale-headed Rosella

Straw-necked Ibis

Pied Currawong

Collared Sparrowhawk

With the almost constant attention of the Sparrowhawk it's surprising the flock of sparrows doesn't seem to be shrinking, but they seems as happy as ever.

 

Male House Sparrow

Well that's about it for September, See you all next month.

Emerald beckons and a new Pardalote Holt begins

 As much as Susanne and I would have liked to continue living at Pardalote Holt for ever, life just doesn't work that way and so in February 2022, after 19 years in Guanaba, we uprooted ourselves and moved to Emerald in the Central Highlands of Queensland. I took on a new job as HR Manager for the largest citrus farm in Australia but after 2-months decided that my new employer wasn't what they portrayed themselves to be and so I resigned. Not what we had planned, but we sold the Holt at the peak of the market and bought our new property on the outskirts of Emerald for a reasonable price and so we're here to stay for the time being.  The new property is considerably smaller on just under an acre of land but it backs onto an expansive area of land owned by the local Rifle Club. We've been here almost 5-months now and I've yet to hear a shot fired, but the land appears to be broken scrub ideal for wildlife and of course birds.  We're over 1000 kms further north and considerably further inland so I am finding new birds and critters to keep me amused.

Blue-winged Kookaburra

and just to show the blue wings

One of the first birds to catch my attention was the Blue-winged Kookaburra. Down south we used too entertain the Laughing Kookaburra and whilst both birds 'laugh' the call of the Blue Winged Kookaburra is quite different. Difficult to describe but when I awoke on my first morning here I heard the chuckles and immediately knew something was different. We seem to have a family of four that visit the garden on a daily basis.

Our next newbie is the Apostlebird. These birds live in communal groups, usually with one pair breeding and the others assisting with incubating the eggs and feeding the chicks, not something I can recall coming across before. Apostlebirds, or Happy Jacks as they are colloquially named, are immense fun. They chatter and play and appear relatively unafraid of humans although they keep a careful eye on our cats, which is wise.

Apostlebird

Part of a family group

Keeping a wary eye on Monty

Loving couple

Always inquisitive

prepared to stick their beaks in anywhere

Another species we didn't encounter at the Holt was the humble House Sparrow. Much maligned by Ozzies as an invasive species the I've usually seen them in more urban environments, but we have a flock of fifty or so that seem to live in the vines over the garden arch.

Female Sparrow on the pool fence

The advantage of having such a healthy flock of Sparrows is that we're also host to a Sparrowhawk.

This cheeky beggar appears next to the Basil patch no more than 10' from the garden door.

No Sparrows in the Basil.

So lets check out the garden arch...

There's a large flock of Sparrows just 5' above him!

Some birds are familiar from the Gold Coast and that includes; 

Peaceful Doves

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

Double-barred Finch

Blue-faced Honeyeater

Grey Fantail

Brown Honeyeater

Silvereye

But back to the newbies. Down south we had King Parrots, here Red-Winged Parrots.

The gorgeous female

and a striking male.

Replacing the Yellow-faced Honeyeater of Guanaba we have the Singing Honeyeater. Slightly larger but similar in its habits.

Singing Honeyeater

And then, just to get me really excited, I discovered we have a Spotted Bowerbird that visits regularly. In Guanaba, if I trotted up to the Tamborine Mountain Rainforests I could see the gorgeous Regents and Satin Bowerbirds, but this one is in my back yard. How good is that. 

Spotted Bowerbird

and finally, the Superb Fairy Wren that's been avoiding me all week.

And yes, there are Pardalotes here, I hear them regularly, but so far they've been hiding way up in the tree tops.