Toad of Toad Hall

We are having El Nino or Nina weather pattern this summer and this means some of  Australia suddenly gets more rain than it bargains for....

So last week here in Willunga we had over an inch of rain which is very welcome in our southern dry climate... but not so good in other parts of the state which received inches in hours which washed away large sections of roads and railway tracks.

The rain here though, made the bark of the eucalypts bring out these wonderful colours...

click on the photo to get a better look....

The next day I found this poor little green parrot dead, in front of the Studio window.We have had an influx of those and also the Rainbow Lorrikeets which chatter and screech away in the tops of the tree.

Yesterday when Kym was digging over some of the vegie beds, getting them ready for Autumn plantings, he dug up what he thought was an old potato...He was about to take it to where he had deposited some stray onions from another bed,when the potato tried to hop off...

So here we have Toad of Toad Hall, stripped of his flamboyant costumes and naked as the day he was born-.....

 It is of course, a Burrowing Frog and the first one I have seen here in the thirty odd years we have lived in this place. I did have the Burrowing Frog at my Watervale cottage back in the late eighties, but those were more brown and darkly spotted. I could not find an image on Google the same as this frog so cannot give its proper name sadly.... we buried him back in his little bed and hope he does a lot of good in the garden.....we need all the help we can get...

What is Life?

                                     What is Life but a series of stripping down.......

                                                                                    "Currango"

                                                                                    Snowy Mountains 1969

What is Love?

                                   "  To love is the ability to bear Life's cruelties with equanimity"

                                           

                                                                                         Egbertine Ordelman-Hazel

Sugar Gum or Eucalyptus cladocalyx and the inability to reply to comments on Blogs

Firstly I would like to apologize to those of my readers who have left comments on my blogs, for not acknowledging them. For some reason the cursor will not engage in the reply box and I find that very frustrating as I have no idea why that has suddenly happened.

I just thought you may be interested in the huge Gum tree at my front gate which I mentioned in my last blog. Fortunately it is on my neighbour's property.  Eucalyptus cladocalyx can grow to great heights and very often has three, four or more layers of canopy. They are very easy to coppice when young and this was done quite a bit on farms in the early days as the wood is excellent fire wood.It is also a beautiful wood to make into furniture.

One evening in August in 2020, there was an enormous thunderclap which was a total surprise as there was no lightening or  rain or rough weather of any kind. It was quite dark so I didn't go out to see what had actually happened.

The following morning I thought to just check what might have happened and found the big Gum tree had dropped a huge limb on my neighbour's shed causing extensive damage as you can see by the photos I took. The noise had been caused by the limb falling on the shed roof and reverberating like a thunderclap.

It took my neighbour quite some months to have his shed repaired.

Being a South Australian and from an old Willunga family , he ought to have known not to build a shed under a Gum tree as they are notorious for dropping their limbs without a moments notice.

The poor tree is no longer the handsome specimen that it was. It would not surprise me if the tree is well over a hundred years old....there was a whole line of them before these paddocks were divided up and sold in the early eighties...

 Some men cleared the wood away very quickly as it would make excellent fire wood which is now at a premium price....

Real Estate in the Bird World

Tonight it was stated on the ABC news, that house prices in Adelaide had increased by 25.5% last year....could this also be so in the bird world?...

As I was hanging out the washing early this morning, with my jacket on and back to the cold Easterly wind (and it is summer here in South Australia...) I happened to see a tail sticking out of the old Tawny Frogmouth's nest. Well, needless to say I got the camera out to record a second sitting of the Tawny for this season. So it was a total surprise to photograph the Bronzewing Pigeon in the old tawny's nest.

Pigeons are not noted for their ability to build substantial nests, the Crested pigeon has a few sticks at most to lay her eggs on and incubate it. The Tawny builds a much better nest and will use it for a few seasons running.... so, have they rented out their space at a premium rate as it is in a very shady Ash tree?.... Do click on the photo to see its pretty head..

The waterlilies are meant to be of an Apricot colour and were Brian's choice the summer before he died.He did see one flower and was interested to see it was more pink than apricot. They are very prolific this year as are the yellow Fringe lilies.The gold fish have plenty of cover now and I am wanting to catch some to put in the fish bath by the Studio but the little buggers are hard to catch.

The little black and white bird surprised me also. I first thought it might be a newcomer finch of some sort. No, it is one of the Willie Wagtail chicks and has no tail to wag, poor little thing. Still, it is quite happy and able to catch its own food but it is sad to see it can only move its little rump and no tail to emphasize the movement.

It was one of the third batch the parents have hatched this season so perhaps it was last in line for tail feathers....

 The other morning I took photos at sunrise and could not resist taking on of the Gum tree which started off as a self sown little teensy seedling. It was not far from a Holm Oak seedling I had planted there and thought to let them both go. Well, the little Holm Oak wouldn't grow, no matter what I did for it but the little Gum tree powered ahead and as straight as an arrow it shot up. I have no idea what sort it is, as Eucalyptus trees are notoriously promiscuous so it could be a cross of the Sugar gum and the Lemon scented gum which is a very tall and elegant tree. The Sugar gum at the corner of our block is at least 150 years old, I guess, and huge....

It dropped an enormous limb on my neighbour's shed the year before last and at times when I walk under it I sometimes hold my breath........