Category: native Australian birds
A day spent in the garden
It was another dull weather day today, which worked out perfectly for getting some gardening done. It wasn’t hot, so I didn’t break out in a sweat while hauling branches of fruit frees, that we have pruned over the last month or so, to the mulcher husband hired for the weekend.
We haven’t pruned the pecan tree, which had bare branches for most of the winter, but now spring has arrived the leaves look green and lucious. Around the pecan tree there is the constant buzzing of bees, as they are congregating daily around the pecan tree doing their bee thing with the flowers. Pecan flowers fascinate me every year. Who would think these long strips of greenery would eventually turn into hard, round, brown, pecan nuts?
Just as we were about to head indoors late this afternoon, we caught sight of a foraging kookaburra. They usually watch us from tree branches while we are gardening, and as soon as we leave the area where we have been working they swoop down to find bugs to eat in the loose soil.
I’m dreadfully tired tonight, so I will say goodnight and head off to bed now. Tomorrow we intend spending another full day in the garden while we have the use of the hired mulching machine. It’s a fantastic machine and does a great job of chopping up thick tree branches, so I guess it’s best described as tiring, but satisfying work, which is the way I feel about most gardening chores. 🙂
Spring-like weather returns
Today the weather, and the appearance of the valley, is completely different to yesterday.
This morning started out fine and sunny, with the ranges and mountain looking crystal clear, as if washed clean by yesterday’s sudden heavy shower of rain. I would have taken photos early, after the sun had risen and cleared the night-haze from the valley if I had time, but I had plans to meet my daughter at the shops. We had to have an early start as she needed to take baby Eli home by midday in time for his nap.
By the time I arrived home, the haze had set in again, although we didn’t reach the same high temperatures as yesterday. Later, I watched out for another beautiful sunset, but unfortunately Mother Nature must have been resting tonight. So today’s view over the valley is more subdued than yesterday.
The baby magpie visited again this morning with his/her parents for breakfast. It’s such a skinny, long-legged bird, and the sweetest little thing. ❤
A kookaburra made itself comfortable on the fence this morning and stayed there for quite a while. It seemed to have its feathers fluffed up, and looked so content that after a while I took some meat out to it, even though I had already fed the usual crowd. Usually when a kookaburra is looking for food, they wait in the palm trees and not on the fence so close to the house as this one was. It flew away as soon as I went outside, which was out of character as well. I know that kookaburras are territorial, so I wondered if perhaps this is a bird from another territory. If only birds could talk, it perhaps could have told me!
Wordless Wednesday
Hazy, blustery, and a beautiful sunset
The weather has been pretty ordinary today. Although the sun has been shining, the wind hasn’t let up for a minute, and the crystal clear valley is hazy again after being washed clean by Saturday’s storm.
I didn’t know what I would end up with today photo-wise, but tonight we had a very pretty sunset. Mind you, I didn’t stay outside long to take the photo, the wind was quite cold!
This afternoon I had a sweet little visitor again. Daddy magpie turned up with baby mags, and they both got stuck into the bird seed I had left out for the honeyeaters. They seemed to enjoy it too.
This baby is still very young, but it seems to be a confident flyer. I see it often flying around up high with its parents.
On Saturday afternoon – during the power outage we had, as it turned out – we had a kitchen designer here who made us an offer to replace the whole kitchen which we simply couldn’t refuse! They are booked up with new kitchen installations until February, but it seems from what we have been told that we will have a kitchen filled with tradesmen for a few days, and everything will be finished when they leave. That includes removing the old kitchen, replacing all the cupboards, installing the new rangehood and range cooker – everything! So I’m pretty excited about that. 🙂
In My World 