At long last...Baby Tawny Frogmouth!!

 What joy this morning to see the Tawny finally has a chick! We could only see one clearly and you will have to click on the photo to see its little face poking out from beneath Dad's front. It has been a long and anxious wait for something to manifest itself. I had noticed the last week or so the old bird wriggling about a lot and wondered. But he has been sitting since early August and I was beginning to despair after such along time of sitting and not seeing a thing happening.

Right next door is a Willy Wagtail nest in the same tree only a few branches away.It is a beautifully constructed cup-shaped nest. It is made with soft fibers and lined with soft feathers. The Willy Wagtail is quite aggressive a lot of the time but even more so when he is nesting. We saw one attacking three magpies the other morning, it would be like us annoying three elephants or poking the stick in the lion's ear....

The Magpies too are nesting now and their nest is quite a large collection of sticks. They will also use binder twine and wire in their nests. One year I found a baby magpie with a malformed foot because some wire had wrapped itself around the leg.The adult magpies are busy feeding the babies with the Kalamata olives which are dropping off the trees. I have preserved as many olives as I can, but this year is a very prolific season for olives because of the excellent rains we have had and they are dropping on the ground.

In the gum tree to the east of the Ashtree where the Tawny and the Willy Wagtail are nesting , is a mud Lark nest. This too is a beautifully constructed mud nest, round and very solid.
The Murray Magpies, as they are also known, are quite alarmist birds and pipe and carry on if you get too close to the tree. Yet the nest is so high up there is no way a human could rob or damage the nest. This year at least they have not attacked the windows as they do other years, seeing their reflection and thinking it is another bird.

Two weeks ago I took this photo of the flowering peach trees, opposite the High School. They made a stunning display but unfortunately the blossom only lasts two weeks at the most.
In our garden the Quince tree is flowering now and the apple trees are coming into bud. The fig tree has the Christmas crop on at this stage, it never ceases to amaze me how large the figs are of first crop.