Wild Energy and Excitement on the Pond....

 What a wonderful surprise this morning when Brian called out from the kitchen that there were ducklings on the pond....and sure enough, there they were, the black ducks with a half a dozen ducklings swimming about busily feeding in among the water lilies. I ran to get my camera at once and took a host of photos because in all the years we have observed the ducks mating on the pond, we have never seen where they nest or if they ever did have ducklings. So here they were busily dashing about in the rocks and swimming amongst the waterlilies.

Here is a puzzle though, Father Duck is a Mallard with his handsome green head and colourful body markings. Has the male black duck changed plumage or is it an entirely different male duck and if he is,where did he come from? He mostly stood guard on the bank but in the end he did come into the water.
I have never seen so much energy as in these ducklings... they were in the water...out the water ...round the fish fountain..back with Mum...scrambling up the rocks ...following each other with amazing speed.... 

 Mum decided this was enough and waddled away and one of the ducklings was left behind getting confused as to which rock to climb on to get out.... she promptly returned and he found a way out...
They were last seen heading west and we assume they probably came from the "wetlands" which are about three hundred meters west, up our road. A long way for tiny little webbed feet to have to go.....

 Our weather pattern is completely changed.
We have had 37 degree days Monday week ago and then a change roared in and we had a savage hailstorm the following Wednesday, the front garden was completely covered with hail as you can see in the photo on the right if you click on it.
I don't know how that has affected the vineyards around here but you wonder about the grapes. I know the fruit growers in the Adelaide hills had very badly damaged young apples, pears and cherries.

After the storm finished I went looking for the Tawny Frogmouths and found them huddled together in the Ashtree protecting their young chick. Did you know that Australia is the only country that has this particular Frogmouth?
The CSIRO have published a fascinating book of studies done on the Frogmouth , some very interesting information about these very special Zen Birds....
Wished I could sit as still and unperturbed in this mad human world as they can....

Feathered Offsprings Fully Fledged

It is truly amazing how quickly the Willy Wagtail chicks grew. I think they were hatched in about ten days and then it was a very busy time for the parent birds to feed four perpetually hungry offsprings...both parents flew in and out all day and every day and I must say we didn't have a mosquito annoying us at all while having our evening drink on the patio.
The chicks started to fill out the nest very quickly and it wasn't long before they were sitting on the vine branches to get more room for exercising their wing muscles....

In the photo on the right they are sitting away from the nest after only a week....they still sit and squeak all day ravenous for food.
Two days after this photo they had flown to the front of the house and were sitting in the Holm oak tree where they are still roosting at night. They have flown down to the fishbowl now and the parents are still giving them food.It will be interesting to see when they have to start foraging for themselves......it is a hot North wind today so all the birdbaths are well patronized

The photo on the left shows a young Blue tongue lizard which I found in our laundry. It was trying to hide itself so I was able to pick it up as it was in a corner and couldn't get away.
It would have crawled under the fly screen door which has a gap down below and doesn't fit flush with the doorstep. They are surprisingly strong and it took me quite a bit of gentle pressure to hold him, it was not amused...I let it go by the Studio wall as its mother lives there and I can hear her scuttling away if I come upon her unexpectedly.

We also had a Koala again that same day but I was not able to photograph him, I think it was a male as he was rather grumpy and growled a lot.
The other thing I am pleased about is that the Hippeastrum bulbs which have been sitting in this pot for about three or more years, have finally starting to show flowers which are spectacular.....I had thought of giving up on them but apparently they like to be crowded in a pot before they will flower and it took them all that time to feel comfortably crowded  ...
So patience does pay, bless my mother for always telling me that when I was young...

Spring and Feathered Offsprings....

 It has been an anxious time waiting for the Tawney Frogmouth chick to appear..... he started sitting on September the 17th which is seven weeks ago and I was starting to despair of ever seeing and offspring, wondering if he was sitting on dud eggs.But at last yesterday I saw  there is a chick sitting in front of his Dad... Mum is on a branch nearby, so all is well.
What a relief ,as you wonder if we are upsetting nature so much now with the vineyards spraying incessantly for downy mildew at present with this strange weather we are having.

 Meanwhile the Willy Wagtails have hatched about four little chicks on the patio vine under cover...we were worried they might expire when we had a sudden burst of very hot weather last week but they survived. Then they also survived the most ferocious thunderstorms we had three nights ago when large hailstones pelted down on the roof, as of course they are well and truly sheltered from those stones with a solid roof over their nest.
The magpies too, have hatched a baby as we can hear it singing out but the nest is too high to make a decent photograph of it.

The other pleasing thing is that the one remaining old chook, which I have been too soft to dispatch for chicken soup and still buying layer pellets for, has suddenly starting to lay eggs....
she is producing one a day...how good is that ...
my patience has been rewarded
now I wonder if I should get her some companions but on the other hand she may be quite happy on her own with nothing to bother her...

 I took a photo of Wombat, one of the quirky pottery animals made by a Yankalilla potter some years ago, as it is looking rather splendid with a fuchsia  I bought at Aldi a while ago.It looked pretty dreadful at the time and felt stupid afterwards for having bought it. It took a long time to right itself as I realized I was drowning it with kindness and it really wanted to be left alone.
Since then it has recovered to the extend where I think I shall have to find a larger pot or even split it up.

The strap cactus is flowering madly as well in front of the Studio.
In fact the whole garden is looking brilliant at present after the good thunderstorm rains we had, nothing like rain to spur plants on....