Dams, ponds and water birds

Lilies on the dam

I believe that a garden without a pond is missing something.  Most of us love water, we enjoy just looking at it, but if it draws in wildlife to the garden then it becomes something special.  Perhaps the smallest pond I have had was in the regency townhouse in Exeter, and that little pond, although only a couple of feet in diametre still managed to house lilies and attract a strong frog population.  In Australia everything can be on a bigger scale and so here we have two dams, the 'Lap swamp' which is about 50m long and 30m wide at its base and the 'New Dam' that is very roughly a 30m triangle, both are around 3m-4m deep.

The Lap Swamp

Although there is a difference is scale, the same general rules apply if you want to have to have a healthy habitat. Ponds/dams work best if they have a blanced eco system and that includes water plants (for airation and flitering), marginal plants (for filtering and wildlife), water bugs (clean up & food for the food chain), fish (to reduce mosquitoes) and shallow areas (for marginals and entry/exit for amphibians).  If you managed to include all these aspects you should be rewarded with a water hole that attracts the wildlife.

The New Dam

I think that mistake a lot of people make when dealing with ponds is that they forget its an active part of the garden and needs tending as much as the flower beds.  Water weeds mustn't be allowed to take over or they can strangle the dam, too many lily leaves can create too much shadow, acidity/alkilinity levels can cause a build up of unsightly algae.  Of course the amount of tending veries on the size of the pond, but generally pond maintenance shouldn't be too time consuming.  Having said that I need to spend 2-3 days a year actually in the New Dam ripping out the Feather Weed before it takes over.  This involves me getting into my stinger suit and wading in, sometimes up to my shoulders, and ripping the weed about by the roots before tossing it up onto the banks.  It  makes great compost and gives me a good workout at the same time.

Wood Duck

Of course, get it right and you will be rewarded with all sorts of visitors.  Once we established the New Dam with weed, lilies and marginals I stocked it with native fish including Yellow Bellies, Silver Brim, and Australian Bass, Blue Crayfish (or Yabbies as they call them here) and Rainbows.  The latter are a minnow sized fish that breed quickly and feast on mosquito larvae, a must for any Australian water feature.

Rainbows come to a chunk of bread

Tadpoles in the shallows

The fish really add something to the dam, and attract the fish eating birds:

A Currawong watching the fish

A Darter drying its wings after a swim

The trick is to have fast breeding fish and to provide cover for them to hide in (lilies e.t.c) so that the fish eaters don't empty the dam.

Pied Cormorant on the Feather Weed

Azure Kingfisher

Whilst the fish eating fish can be very striking the insect eating lily trotters can also be fun to watch.  These birds are often less keen on flying and really appreciate some good thick marginals such as reeds, rushes or irises to hide in.

Irises are attractive marginals

Dusky Moorhen

Purple Swamphen

Straw-necked Ibis

Forest Kingfisher

And then there's the ducks. Our ducks spend feeding times on the New Dam and roosting time on the Lap Swamp.  Most of the year we have Australian Black Duck, Wood Duck and a single male Mallard for added colour, but around Christmas we get Plumed Whistling Duck joining the rafts and they are quite special.

Plumed Whistling Duck with Wood Duck in the background.

A Black Duck displays its scapulars.

And of course in springtime you get babies!

Very baby duck!

So there you have it, a whistle stop tour of the dams at Pardalote Holt.  They do take some work, but the pleasure they return is well worth any effort.

Late afternoon over the New Dam

Winter at the Holt

I'm never quite sure when a season starts and begins in Australia, but July and August I can safely say is mid-winter....(waiting to be corrected) in South-East Queensland.  That means generally dry weather with warm sunny days and cool evenings, resulting in a little dew, but otherwise it can be very dry.  From the gardening point of view it's a time to catch up with cutting back the grass, reducing the fuel load, and doing the maintenance work.  The exception is the vegetable garden as its now the time to grow those vegetables more common in the European climates including cabbages and sprouts.

Here's my patch, protected from the possums by chicken wire, bird netting, and the dogs! The 'lawn' is open to all and we are lucky enough to have Red-necked Wallabies as regulars on the dam wall.

Despite it being a period of slow growth for many of the natives, it's also the time when many of the flowering shrubs come into their true glory.  The Grevilleas are putting it out there for all its worth at this time of year and that means beautiful blooms and lots of small nectar eating birds.

Marmalade Grevillea

 Here's a Scarlet Honeyeater on the 'Marmalade' Grevillea and following is the same bird on the classic Robyn Gorden Grevillea.

Robyn Gorden

And just to finish the same bird (because I like Scarlet Honeyeaters) on the Fire Sprite Grevillea.

Fire Sprite

Sorry about the repeats, but I just think it's one gorgeous budgie!


The Grevilleas are not the only plants that I have introduced to attract the birds.  In some cases it's for the nectar as with these Kangaroo Paws and Pineapple Sage;

Kangaroo Paws

Pineapple Sage

..but its also plants that provide berries, including Hairy Pittasporum and Midyim Berry.

Hairy Pittasporum

It's not just the honeyeaters that build in numbers, but the ducks do to.  I'm unsure as the the migratory patterns of birds in the Southern Hemisphere, but at this time of year the duck numbers will increase from a dozen or so to near a hundred.  Of course that means I have to supply more bird seed and feeding time can be a bit of a quackle & squawk affair.

Ducks waiting for chow time

 Early morning and they are waiting for me to come out, and when the food is down then it's a bit of a rush...

Feeding time at the dam

The ducks will feed for an hour or so on the dam and then late morning they will move round to the lap swamp to let their food go down.

Ducks on the Lap Swamp

Whilst the duck numbers rise the parrots generally stay steady, although Sparky and the King Parrots disappear to mate and don't really make a comeback before September.

Galah & Rainbow Lorikeet

The Galahs and Rainbow Lorikeets are pretty much all year rounders, and are usually straight onto the tables as the food is put out.

Bronzewing

Whereas the pigeons, such as this Bronzewing, are more timid and will wait until the fuss has died down a little. Here's some more birds that I've managed to catch passing through...

Noisy Friarbird

Above is the Noisy Friar Bird, one of the largest of the Honeyeater family and not blessed with the good looks of his smaller cousins; however, they are comical creatures with their bald heads and honking voices that can often be found having a conversation with themselves using the car's wing mirrors.

Double-barred Finch

Laughing Kookaburra

The cuddly Kookaburra is a regular visitor, but below is a White-bellied Sea Eagle that I caught passing through.  Now he caused a commotion amongst the ducks I can tell you!

White-bellied Sea Eagle

 And this is the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo that has a very distinctive mournful cry and can be heard coming from miles away.

Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo

This is a great time of the year for morning walks in the bush, unfortunately its also tick season, so I have to ensure the dogs are protected with various tick defences and then inspected on return, however, the fun they get out of a good walk is worth it.

Bitsy in the morning dew

Tolkein leads Bitsy along the Jasmine Path

So, there's a snapshot of winter at the Holt.  Spring is on the way and I have all sorts of ideas ranging from expanding the Ginger Garden, to bigger veggie patches and even more varieties of Grevillea.  So, I'll try and write some more next month.
 

Winter at the Holt

June has passed and we're now in mid-winter, which like in the Northern Hemisphere means that plant growth slows, the weather is colder, and the ducks build in numbers. Currently we have over 80 ducks on the dams, mostly Australian Black Duck, but with a dozen or so Wood Duck and a lone male Mallard. At this time of the year most of my work around the garden is clearing and maintenance, so the chainsaw, mattock, bow saw, puning shears and brush cutter get a real work out.
  As you can imagine I am attired in the pinacle of garden couture when I head out for the latest project!

It's a time for clearing the fuel load (precaution against bush fires), cutting back the old grass, clearing the fallen branches and taking down the old and dying trees and shrubs.  Hard graft all in all, and it's a pity my son is swanning around in the military as I could do with a hand with some of the bigger stuff.

Despite all the clearing work it is a great time for birds as the Grevilleas are flowering still and a fair spread of species migrate in.

I grow a range of Grevilleas such as this favourite 'Ice Cream', and others including Honey Gem, Ivory Whips, Fire Sprite, Cherry Pop, Robyn Gordon, Peaches & Cream, and the best for the small birds, Marmalade.

Our Marmalade Grevillea is a large shrub, almost 3m high, and throughout the day is host to a real party of smaller birds including Scarlet, Yellow-faced, Brown and Lewins Honeaters, Eastern Spinebills, Double-barred Finch, Silver-Eyes, Yellow-Rumped Thornbills and the ever present Rainbow Lorikeets.  Here's an assortment:

Eastern Spinebill

Brown Honeyeater

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Scarlet Honeyeater

Lewins Honeyeater

Rainbow Lorikeet

And of course the observant may have noticed that none of those birds were actually sitting in the Marmalade Grevillea, which is because they seem to hop around so much it's difficult to photograph them in it.


Although much of the native growth has slowed, there's no such issues in the vegetable garden as the cooler weather means I can grow European veggies.  So I recently unearthed the Sweet Potatoes, cropped the pumpkins, and the beds are now planted with cabbage and lettuce (continuing good crop rotation practoce by following root crops with green leafed crops.  Once these finish I'll re-fertilise the plots with horse manure and aged compost before starting the hungry crops of tomatoes, corgette and capsicum once the warmer weather arrives.

The first load from the Sweet Potato crop that eventually filled 2 full sinks!

and a couple of pumpkins to go with the roasts.

Australian nights

For those like myself who hail from more northern lands the Australian night can seem amazingly noisy. A healthy dam or pond will attract frogs, most of which we rarely see, but at dusk they begin to call. The chorus at the Holt usually begins with the "toc" of the Striped Marshfrog.  We call them the "Ping Pong" frogs because they "toc" at each other across the dam managing a fair imitation of a game of table tennis.  As things get darker the other frogs chime in and we think we have identified the jackhammer rattle of the Emerald-spotted Treefrog, "crow-ks" from Green Treefrogs and the slow "chirps" of the Striped Rocketfrog; all of which we have seen in daylight.

The less welcome call is the purring trill of the Cane Toad that is unfortunately in abundance in the area.

As the night gets darker and the Cicadas begin to quieten down we are joined by the squawking scrabble of the Grey-Headed Flying Foxes that feed amongst the eucalypt blossoms.  The bats are large with wingspans over a metre.  They flap from tree to tree and squabble amongst themselves, appearing to cackle at those of us on the ground.

Quite commonly we will hear the Brush-tailed Possums around the birdtables.  Their call is undescribable and has led me to naming them the "kangarillapigs" and they aren't scared by some daft human with a torch so are fairly easy to see.  This one was so curious I found it in the spa one night, just having a nose around.

Poor thing wasn't impressed with artificial light and soon scooted through the window once I opened it for him.

As dawn arrives the sound of the frog chorale, the fruit bat tussles and the possum scraps die away, but very soon afterwards the birds begin.

One of the early risers is the Pied Currawong whose call is a strange series of "boops" and rising and falling notes.  To me it has become the sound of the Australian Bush along with the Australian Magpie and the Kookaburra.

Just after dawn it's time for me to put feed to the tables and you'll never guess who is already waiting...

Yup!  It's Sparky and his clan of King Parrots.

We can all relax in the airconditioned comfort of our homes, watching our favourite TV shows and enjoying a glass of wine, but sometimes it really is worth stepping outside and listening to the orchestra of the night.

Visiting birds and summer downpours.

With the weather providing more food for the birds, the gums in bloom and wild fruits appearing, the number of birds with young has increased. However, the intensity of the rains have not only made the creeks and falls tumble but have been the cause of much sogginess amongst my feathered friends.

The Rainbow Lorikeets use the deck as a refuge, but still appear a sorry lot.

Sparky the King Parrot appears drenched, but dries himself off in the same manner as a dog!  First he shakes his legs and then...
 

You get the full spin dryer mode.

 This poor old Kookaburra looks more like a battered teddy bear beacuse of the soaking.

But the Bush chuck just ploughs on regardless. The water has been so plentiful over recent months that the vegetation is coming on thick and green, although I suspect the Honeyeaters would prefer things a tad drier.

But according to the forecasters there is more of this to come, although I suspect this Forest Kingfisher isn't overly concerned. Still, the frogs are happy!

Summer floods

It’s often said that Australia is a place of extremes, and as if to live up to its reputation the country has delivered in spades.  ‘The Big Dry’ was the drought that started in 2001, reached a peak in ’07 and was declared ended in November last year.  It finished with unseasonal rains that filled the creeks, turned the farmlands green and brought life to the bush.  Even the great Lake Eyre had water in it again and birds in their millions arrived to take advantage of the bounty brought about by the rains.

During the Big Dry the Australians suffered their worst bush fires in living memory and on Black Saturday (7 Feb 2009) a series of bushfires raged across Victoria killing 173 and injuring a further 414.  The bankruptcy and suicide rate amongst the farming community continued to climb as the lack of water gradually leached the life from the agricultural world,  The great river Murray faltered and became a trickle, extreme water restrictions where enforced and the environment suffered as the artery of Victoria stuttered and almost failed.

We had become used to long dry winters where glorious blue skied days stretched across the months and my eye was constantly on the water tanks. The gardeners amongst us waited for summer in the hope that rains would dampen the earth and we could establish new plants that might survive the next arid winter. 

Then last year it changed.  Rains came early, not tropical downpours, but steady rains and the earth breathed again.  The rains defied habit and continued, the grass on the roadsides changed from gold to green, the dams filled, the gums bloomed. Lake Eyre filled a second time in the same year, unheard of in living memory, and the people planned trips to the Red Centre to see the fields of wild flowers decorating the normally broken land.

The downside of all this wet wonder was that the rains were raising the water tables, saturating the ground and filling the creeks and rivers, and so when the summer rains came there was carnage.  Fuelled by a strong La Nina and intensified by higher sea temperatures in the Western Pacific the summer rains came back with a vengeance.  Firstly in the north of Queensland and then steadily spreading south the rain was intense and demanding.  In normal times rain would sweep across the state in bands, each passing over within 15 minutes, but this year they dawdled.  The storm clouds crawled slowly across the hills taking an hour to pass instead of the quarter and releasing their bounty in breathtaking falls, in some cases exceeding 100mm per hour.

The water fell and finding no dry earth in which to seep or empty dams to fill it swept through the watercourses and out to the floodplains…which had been built on. It began with the smaller rural towns such as Emerald and Dalby, then to the larger inland city of Toowoomba and finally in a dramatic crescendo of roaring brown water through the city streets of Brisbane. 

The sheer size of Australia means that floodwaters take their time to get to places.  The original rains may have fallen on a ancient volcano in central Queensland but its days and sometimes weeks before they reach the towns and cities.  Communities have some time to build levees and sandbag walls before they are hit.  Sometimes the defences hold, sometimes tragically not.  People have been evacuated to safer ground, but there are always some who stay to save their property, a hopeless defiance of nature that often has ended in tragedy.

We live on a hill, some way south and far above the stinking mud and devastation wrought across the flood plains of the Brisbane River.  We were slightly inconvenienced by the route to the freeway being flooded and the odd short power outage, but an hour’s drive north of us people’s lives have been destroyed.  It has been remarkable, and uplifting, to witness the community spirit as volunteers in their thousands came out like an army of ants to restore the city.  Owners of houses that had been flooded were in tears both for their loss, but as much for the help offered by complete strangers. The mayor ‘Can Do’ Newman and the state premier Anna Bligh have rallied the masses, told the people that Queenslanders are bred tough and will be strengthened by the adversity.  Both have proven real leaders in a crisis, but I suspect both know that as the months of restoration turn into years there will be many who will never recover.  People have lost businesses, lost homes and all their belongings and many were not insured against floods.  The properties that survived will require costly repairs, but experts suggest will lose more than half their value as purchasers in the future check as to their vulnerability to the floods. 

To add to their misery the summer has just begun.  The cyclone season has hardly started and so there are more rains to come.  This is the season for flash floods and tropical rains, and they will be intensified by the much hoped for La Nina. There will be some tough times ahead.

On a much more personal level the waters have brought beauty to our gardens.  The trees are flourishing, the Ginger Garden beaming with flowers and the vegetable plots have become rampant with growth. The Wallabies seem to be all with Joey and the parrots are accompanied by newly fledged juveniles.  The frogs sing joyously each night and during the heat of the day their chorus is replaced by the sometimes deafening rattle of a million Cicadas. The gums are blooming providing a 24-hour pollen café, by day for Lorikeets and Honeyeaters, by night for the large Grey-headed Flying Fox (wingspan over 1m).

My efforts with mattock, hoe, brush-cutter and chainsaw are now paying dividends.  Susanne actually commented that the gardens were beginning to look “established”, a compliment indeed. Between the deck and the dam I have planted a grove of Grevilleas and Jasmine through which runs a path bridged by three rose arches on which climb the jasmine and a white climbing rose. The arches combine with the lush hedges to create a tunnel affect for those who like their gardens to have a spirit of the fey. 

The dams themselves have been planted with lilies and bordered with various flowers and fruiting natives that provide shade for the ducks and feeding stations for the Fairy Wrens and Honeyeaters. The dams are stocked with native fish including Yellow Bellies, Australian Bass, Silver Bream and Rainbow Minnows.  Their presence is signalled by ripples and swirls and on a warm day you can sometimes find Schnappy the turtle sunbathing on the wooden steps. Less visible but available on a line with some meat bait are the Yabbies, freshwater crayfish that live in the muddy floor.

Due to unsubstantiated claims of hen worrying from a distant neighbour we have fenced off the back garden and vegetable plots so that the dogs have a contained area to run free and this has provided the bonus of freedom from being harried (by dogs) to the Wallabies.  We are now seeing our bounding buddies coming right up to the deck as they graze on my strimmed native lawns. 

Our vegetable plots are a constant experiment.  I grow northern hemisphere staples such as Runner and French Beans, carrots, spring onions and peas alongside more tropical experiments including sweet potatoes, aubergine, capsicums and pau pau. The herb plot is great fun as I am having huge success with rainbow chillies, Thai basil, coriander and Thai coriander; joining the various thymes, parleys, marjoram’s and curry plants. 

Our Lemon tree, Lemonade bush, and Cumquats are full of fruit and the Olive tree and native Finger Limes showing encouraging buds. The native fruits I have planted include the Lilly Pilly, Hairy Pittosporum, Miracle Fruit, Bush Cherry, Native Raspberry, and Muttonwood. These are already proving popular with the birds and Olive Backed Orioles, Figbirds and Lewin’s Honeyeater have become regulars. 

There are still some years to go before the Sandpaper Figs, Long-Leaved Tuckaroo, Davidson’s Plum, Rosewood, Lemon-scented Tea Trees, Native Frangipanis, and Peanut Trees really kick off, but they are growing fast and full of leaf. The Passion Fruit vine is scrambling over the cut wall and I’m confident that by next year we’ll be enjoying its fruit over Susanne’s Pavlovas. 

None of this comes without effort and besides the planting I fight a constant war with the Blue Billy Goats weed, Dragon Trees and Creeping Oxalis, but each day that I drive them back is accompanied by a great sense of satisfaction.