Spring with Flowers, Baby Birds & Quondongs

 After a seemingly wet and dreary winter we are suddenly into the warmer weather and all in the garden are busily flowering or breeding
young things. The yellow bearded irises have been the first to show off their colours and form. These came from a friend in Tasmania originally and among them is a tan coloured iris which I have not seen anywhere else. It is inclined to flower in March for some reason and can get lost if I am not careful about giving it a little water during the hot summers we have here. The others are dark blue or pale blue with white falls, a pink one with white falls, a buff one with white falls and one that was almost black but we seem to have lost that one.
The bees are busy in the quince and apple trees and the apricot which was threatened with the chop early last year, but then got a reprieve and produced a bucket full of apricots, that too has flowered and set fruit.

 The grey blob you see on the vine branch on our patio, is a nest being built by the Willy Wagtail. Both male and female have been contributing to this nest for well over a fortnight now. They seem to mainly work in the mornings and then we don't see them till late afternoon. I was wondering if the male uses some of the latex from the fig tree to bond the fibers into a sturdy sort of a nest and it is beautifully shaped as he goes along. Remember to click on the photos to get a closer look......

 You can see him trying the nest out for size in the photo below....
I have been cutting off all the glory vines bunches of grapes as they make an awful mess and the little berries which result if I don't trim them first, are a nightmare when the blackbirds decide to eat them in the autumn. He hasn't seemed to have minded me being up a ladder to do this.

 The photo above is of a young Magpie which I was trying to get away from the pond before he wandered into it and were to drown. It has a wonky leg and is quite lame. this afternoon an adult Magpie came along and started abusing it. It was upside down with it's little legs in the air like they do sometimes in play as well but this was serious abuse and it did get up quickly and got away....

The Nasturtiums next to the pond are a bright and cheerful lot and the pale pink flowers at the back belong to a succulent which is a great ground cover. They originally came from Brian's grandmothers place and he remembers them well from when he was a little boy. His stepfather grew vegetables which were picked too late and so were not very nice.
The Nasturtiums are good to eat and I quite often have them in sandwiches or under a poached egg on toast.

The Quondongs are very good this year and quite a good size as well.
I de-stoned 400 grams yesterday and deep froze them to do something with when there may be a few more.  I believe you can make them into all sorts of preserves, chutney, jams, pies.....
Otherwise they are very nice fresh, thinly sliced and put into a salad.

The white rose is the first one off my "Tineke" rosebush this season. It is a very good cutting rose and will last for well over a week. I twas obviously bred in the Netherlands and the rose book says its' parentage is unknown....now there is a slur on a well bred rose......