More Wildlife at Willunga: Micro-Bat.....

Well, we arrived home early last evening after being at a birthday party....and I was stone cold sober as I am the driver these days and had been on aqua pura all evening ..... and here we had a micro bat flitting around our rooms..... We have no idea how they get into the house except perhaps by the brick half circular wall which goes up to a high ceiling and may not be perfectly sealed. How to get them out is always a problem so we are inclined to let him fly about and hopefully find it in the morning hanging behind a curtain somewhere.

 Only this morning when I got up early, I found him next to Brian's chair and I thought it was dead. But when I went to push a piece of sturdy paper under it, I noticed it was moving its head. So I got my gloves and carted it out, grabbing my camera on the way. It isn't easy manoeuvring a camera trying to get the right focus while holding a bat. So the gloved hand photo is out of focus but I thought it would give you the idea of how small the bats are. On the left you can see his delicate little feet and some of the cobwebs (shame on me) it collected up high in the ceiling.

 The other exciting bit of news is that we have some visiting Kookaburras. They were flying through on Sunday morning but yesterday they inspected our pond and studied the waterlilies in great detail. There are some goldfish left still under neath them as the White faced Heron has not got them all yet....and when I was removing the scum off one end of the pond, low and behold... froglets and tadpoles so the scum has been left for them...
I was able to get this photo through the music room window.

 On the right is our new ( or is it my) acquisition.
In a moment of madness I accepted a friend's offer of what she calls, her Trevi Fountain. She has sold up and is moving closer to Adelaide and the fountain was not suitable for the new place.
It really is not suitable for ours either as we have what I fondly call a "Wild Garden" meaning things get done in there when they get done and litter of the Lemon scented Gum lies about till it gets too much and we rake it up and mulch it. Since we have a friend who helps us each week

with all the heavy work and is extremely good at trimming things that look decidedly out of control, he also helped bring the fountain from Pt Willunga over to here and assembled it beautifully. In the end though, he did have to have one of his willing sons come over to lift the main structure on its pedestal as that was beyond me altogether. It won't be a fountain of course as it would take masses of water and so it has succulents in its basins instead.
By the way, I put the little micro bat in the open shed on some bark...I have also bought a Micro-Bat Box which will be installed soon....

More Wildlife at Willunga

It seems I have to alter the way I write this blog for reasons unknown....oh, the ways of the internet....
It has taken me a while to sort this out and so here is the latest of our Wildlife in our garden.
Mr Hare (or was it Mrs?) was lazily loping around our back garden a week or so ago. They are extremely shy (as would you be, hunted by vignerons who object to you chewing through their drip lines) so it was fortunate I was able to sneak round the corner without opening the laundry door and get two photos. The moment he heard the click of the camera he was off and running.....
While I had the camera out I took some more photos of the vegie garden, The peas have done so well this cool and wet winter that we have not had to buy any green vege at all.It probably helps too that now I am able to water with rainwater from the tank.
We also have broad beans now and silverbeet  and Swiss chard which is very pretty as well as good eating.
The photo of the spring vines was taken some weeks ago now. They are shiraz grapevines and belong to the next door neighbour. They look so delicate at that stage and you wonder where they get the energy from after the rough harvesting they have endured in Autumn when they look so battered and bruised.
Because the weather has been damp some days, the fumigating machines have been very busy in the vines keeping the downy mildew and other nasties at bay. It seems a constant battle for them but if they don't spray the sulphur, they would have no grapes to harvest.
The Dutch irises were very blue and contrasted wonderfully with the succulent plant also flowering at the same time.
The photo with the tall,straight gum tree is the view from my studio window.
It can be very inspirational looking out on this at times when I am stuck for ideas to go on with for my stitched art works. It was a seedling we decided to keep as the Holm oak had refused to grow there. Holm oaks can be very slow to get going but grow into magnificent shade trees.
The arum lilies are considered a weed now as they can spread along waterways, but I don't think they will cause much harm in front of the studio window.
The Holm oaks in front of our kitchen windows are flowering prolifically and the bees are there in droves....this is so exciting to have such numbers of bees as they have been sparse for several seasons and perhaps, just perhaps our zuchinis will be fertilized and so will our Queensland blue pumpkins and I may yet realize my dream of pumpkin vines covering the front yard and pumpkins in such numbers as to be embarrassing and so lots to give away and share......

Tawney Frogmouth,Nests, Frogs and Memento Mori

We have had some pretty wild and wet weather this August and after one of the more ferocious wind squalls I found a Magpies nest on the ground the next morning.
What amazed us was the materials the birds had gathered to make their nest. It had binder twine, some green garden tie wire and of all things, a piece of cyclone fencing wire....how innovative can you get, here are birds taking advantage of modern materials and we are still mostly building brick,on brick.....

A week ago now I heard the first frog croaking in the night.
They have been so silent we thought perhaps they had left our pond or,horrors of horrors, something had eaten them all....
So it was with joy to hear at least one frog but now there are three at least and hopefully more, croaking not quite as a chorus but still at least as duets. The white faced Heron stands at the edge still, not having quite managed to eat all the goldfish but now I strongly suspect, he is listening to the frogs as well.
Nature will take its course I guess and the frogs will learn to hide themselves among the slate pieces lining the pond.
This morning while pouring my early morning cup of tea, there was a Wood duck, a male with his handsome chestnut head and calling to his mate in that peculiar sound, like a cat meouwing .
We had them years ago before our trees had become large.
They have nested in the old Sugargum at the gate and it is disconcerting to see the young ducklings drop out of the nest from a great height, bouncing like little rubber balls......

The other noteworthy thing is that the Tawney Frogmouth is sitting on the nest again, this is the third year in a row they are using the same nest. He started on the 21st of this month.....
The Ash tree is just starting to sprout and I remember last year he sat all through the most horrendous weather then, to hatch his two chicks.
He too, of course eats frogs so again I hope the frogs know how to hide at night as well.....

On Monday, while putting the wood on the patio,
I found this desiccated frog on the bricks....
I have put it in with the Wattle bird scull and feet which I found in the front garden some moths ago....I keep them in an old chocolate box next to the other Memento Mori .... a raven's scull....what is this fascination with skeletal things at the moment.....is it my age? or is it just that I marvel at the complexity of created bodies.....

More Wildlife at Willunga

There was a little bat hanging on the sun blind of the small studio window this afternoon.I think it maybe a micro-bat.....
It was there last weekend when our visitors were looking at my small textile art works and I did take some photos of it when it fell down on the tarpaulin covering the rain water pump.
But this afternoon I was able to get the camera before it got away. So there it is, hanging upside down with its big ears showing up quite well.
Remember to click on the photo to get a better look.

The photo of the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo was taken a month or so ago when he and his mates were very intent on decimating our walnut crop, it was not amused when I made violent attempts to shift them, as you can see by its open beak and its raised crest.....I told them this was not their native food at all and they could go and eat gum nuts etc and prune gumtrees elsewhere....they flew off.... screaming obsceneties

The photo on the left is of an unusual moth which was sitting on the patio window screen one morning.
You can see the reflection of me taking the photo
 which makes it quite interesting.
The Willy Wagtails are making the patio their territory and early in the morning they mooch around on the bricks picking up insects of the night.......They too, can become quite vocal if things are not to their liking.....

Three Blind Mice and Winter Roses

This week we seem to be inundated with little rodents. The clam traps I had been using were failing to go off and I seem to be feeding the dear little things with peanut paste by the spoonful. So set out to buy new traps but they no longer seem to sell the clam types. So bought some expensive plastic ones from the hardware store and they too were ineffective, or so I thought at the time and tossed one out in the bin. Then bought some of the good old wooden ones like we had in days gone by, only to find that the first one fell apart as I tried to set it and the other three proved ineffective as well.

 The little blighters were eating the bait out of the nylon stocking it was wrapped in even though I had tied it on as well....I watched one doing so this morning as I was writing my journal and drinking the early mug of tea, its little hands delicately unwrapping the nylon....
so decide to give the other new plastic trap another go and Bingo! it worked this time. So hastily dived into the recycle bin to recover the one I had thrown out in frustration....Above are the three caught in a matter of minutes and since then have caught four more......

The seasons are so weird now, there are roses still blooming in our garden despite the fact it is winter and the gumtrees are shading the rose garden. One is Apricot nectar and the other is Fire and Ice, very similar to Double Delight.
The vegie patch is not doing very well except for the garlic which is very enthusiastic and have two solid rows of green spikes. The rhubarb is very demanding and thinks it needs a drink almost every other day. At least the broadbeans are doing well.....

The pomegranates look quite beautiful with their green background but I don't seem to use them much at all as I am not sure how to work with them. I did strain the juice out of them the other day and used it on my muesli, they are supposed to be very healthy for you.
The Sulphur Crested Cockatoos were visiting a few weeks ago and eying off our walnuts. We had quite a good crop this year and I had to chase them away a few times so I harvested them as quickly as I could. We do have a lot of birds visiting but I rather fear the Noisy Minors are taking over and we don't see the greenies at all now or the blackbirds either and the willy wagtail was chased off the patio too a few days ago....I may have to take drastic actions on them soon......

Wedding Anniversary 25th May 2017

 Today was our 26th Wedding Anniversary and we went to the Currant Shed to celebrate.
It is a lovely little restaurant situated at the end of a narrow road and sits among vineyards which are changing into autumn colours.
You look out onto a grove of citrus trees pruned into umbrella shapes and they look very pretty.
In amongst them flit a lot of fairy wrens busy eating all the bugs that bother plants.
The shed is actually very comfortable and has good acoustics with a straw ceiling which absorbs sound and so you don't have to shout to each other to be heard.

We looked at the extensive wine list and decided on a shiraz from Tasmania. We visited the Holm Oak winery probably fifteen years ago when we took our campervan across on the Tasmanian ferry. We could both remember the Holm Oak trees, which are evergreen and can be pruned into hedges. The winery itself we vaguely remember as a shed.
The shiraz was typically cool climate and on the light side, not unlike a pinot noir really. Certainly not the full bodied, mouth filling wines grown in our Willunga area.
We were brought some delicious morsels of food to start with, one oyster each which were fresh and crisp and some deep fried kale holding a creamy paste.
Then some deep fried ribbon of beetroot with a lovely cream holding chopped Kalamata olive. I just find it such a lovely surprise to have these little tid-bits while we are waiting for the first course.

Brian had chosen the quail/grape/miso/watercress for his entree.
It is served on a lovely handcrafted plate.
He wasn't quite sure where the quail was and thought it must be in the sausage shape.
I had avoided the quail as I usually find the little bones a bit hard to cope with.
He enjoyed it very much and the light shiraz went with it very well.

I chose the squid/chorizo/beans/fennel for my entree.
It had some grilled corn with it which was an intriguing addition and the beans were delicious.
The squid was real squid with its grilled little tentacles making me feel a little sad, but then as I said to Brian, they really only live a short little life in their environment so we may as well eat them as not......

We both chose the venison/cabbage/white peas/curry leaf for our main course.
The venison was medium to rare and the cabbage, some of it red pickled cabbage went with it very well. The Holm Oak went very well with this and though Brian thought his knife was not as sharp as he would have liked, I had no such difficulty. You do wonder where the venison came from as the deer up at Yacka are driving Janet and Horst mad on their farm and they would be happy for shooters to come and eradicate them so their trees can grow to a decent size. This photo was taken by our waitress who volunteered to take it with us standing in front of the little citrus trees. I wonder what the next twelve months will hold........

Tawney Frogmouth in January......

It is hard to believe that our Tawney Frogmouth Dad has again sat on his nest in the Ashtree and produced another offspring in the height of summer....but he did and yesterday morning I saw the little chap peeping out from beneath his Dad's hot body. It was creeping up to 40* C yesterday but luckily there were no fierce northerly winds. Also ,of course, the Ashtree is in full leaf so there was plenty of shade. It is interesting too, that when I first saw the chick it was quite white but this morning it had turned gray.
Last night we had another amazing sunset but when I went to take a photograph the battery in my
 Nikon 80 was flat and could not fire.There are plenty of dramatic sunsets and sunrises in my photo stash so here is one from an earlier time.
I love the outlines of the gumtrees now they are mature sized, we planted them twenty five years ago and they have grown without a great deal of extra water except perhaps for the first few years when they were all on drippers.

We have been seeing quite a few bunnies this year as the wet winter has encouraged them to breed up. they are cute creatures till they start to decimate one's vegie patch and nibble on the rosebushes . We have had Mr Hare lope through the front garden also but I don't mind him or her as they don't seem to do much damage here. They will chew the trunks of small trees of course so we did have to  protect them for some years.The vignerons don't like them at all because they will chew through the dripperlines.

Kangaroos do so too, I am told, to get at the water.
Our garden has been looking very good this year with all the rain we have had. The pond especially has become a mass of water lilies and the surrounding plants flowered so well.
It was such a wet winter and spring with the cool weather lasting till Christmas when it certainly told us not to be complaisant and fired up to 40*C on Christmas day and we had our lunch inside in airconditioned comfort....no standing in front of a hot wood stove in one's knickers to cook the Christmas goose nearly fifty years ago.....was I really that silly in my younger days?