Praying Mantis, the Micro-Bat Box & Monitor

 We had an amazing visitor in December , just near Christmas. It was a Praying Mantis which had landed on the door post of the patio.
I believe they are voracious insect hunters so it was good to have it in our area. I have no idea where it normally lives and hunts as this is the first one I have seen here.I was looking for facts about this insect for South Australia and came up with the Latin name of Orthodera Novaezealandiae but whether this is correct or not I do not know.

I do know their sex life is most peculiar as the female will bite the head off her mate which continues to copulate with her.....I ask you, how weird can that be...
Here at last is a photo of the Micro-bat box we nailed to the rafter of the shed. The difficulty with this is, that you have no idea if it is being used as there is no lid to lift. It has to climb into the space via a small horizontal opening in the bottom of the box. Shining a torch up into it may give us a clue.

The man who monitors the Micro bats in the Aldinga scrub, very kindly came and installed two monitors last Wednesday to see what activity there may be at our place and also to identify the little bats by the sounds it emits as it flies about.
He told me that the little creatures can travel as far as 25km to feed which is astounding for such a little bat. It is no bigger than a house mouse really. So it is all rather exciting and we look forward to seeing the results in a few days time.

On New Years Day we had to harvest the apricots as, though they seemed still firm, they were starting to deteriorate near the stone.It was a good crop this year as you can see by the large bucket full, last year we had exactly "one" which we shared with each other.....
So this year I was able to not only make jam but also some apricot paste which is similar to quince paste but I don't think is quite as good.
Besides that I stewed some and they are in the deep freeze ready for winter breakfasts or puddings even.....apricot cobbler with cream....

The nectarines have just started today so I have picked two buckets and given one to my sister in law this afternoon as I can't cope with such a large amount. I will stew some but dry most of them as they are lovely dried and the flavour is very intense, it makes my mouth water to think of them.....They don't make very good jam for some reason which is a shame. The other draw back is that they ripen all at once so they have to be picked straight away.
The picture at the bottom here is one of my two little boys when we were at Hughes Park and had orphan lambs to nurture into full grown sheep.
This would be in about 1966 and while Gordon is holding it , Gregory seems somewhat put out by this......Just above Gordon's head in the distance you can see the meat shed and killing yard.....Those were the days.....