Pardalote Holt: #australian migratory birds

Showing posts with label #australian migratory birds. Show all posts

Sunday, October 30, 2022

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.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

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.

Monday, November 16, 2020

October brings some rain

October has been fairly quiet for me. I managed to take some leave, which meant an opportunity to catch up on some of the long list of garden jobs and to do a little birding. It's also peak breeding season for our hens as well as some of the native birds. I noticed that a Bush Turkey had built a breeding mound behind the chicken runs. "noticed' suggests I might have missed it, but no, the mound was over a metre tall and 6-8 metres square. Bush Turkeys and chooks often don't get on well as the male turkeys are obsessed with raping the chooks and both sexes steal eggs; however, Bush Turkeys are also very aggressive towards Lace Monitors and Goannas, especially around their mounds, so I watch with interest to see whether we would benefit or otherwise from the mound. Certainly a number of baby Bush Chooks were hatched and there were odd occasions when I had to nip outside to separate a randy Bush Turkey from a distressed chook. We lost a number of eggs, averaging two or three a day, but we have an excess of eggs so that wasn't an issue. The big win was that prior to the mound being built the Lace Monitors had been circling and they will rip into eggs and any chook they can catch sitting on them. Once the mound was complete they vanished and I haven't seen one since (although my neighbour reports in sightings including one individual supposedly the size of a small crocodile). So, I think the experiment has been a success and the Bush Chooks can stay (they are legally protected anyway) with my blessing.

Bertie the Bush Turkey guards his mound

A few months ago we managed to find a girlfriend for Dymple (our Peacock) and 'P-Diddy' has been in the peacock run since Feb/Mar (they need 6-months to settle). I managed to catch Dymple at the end of last month and put him in with her (he's normally free range) and as it was peak breeding season he immediately flourished his tail and set to wooing her. I can announce that only yesterday an egg has appeared and so we wait with bated breath to see if more come and P-Diddy sits on them.

Meanwhile, back on the dam its nice to see that we still have turtles. We don't see them often but this Saw-shelled Turtle came out on the banks for a short bask as the days started warming.