Not-So-Angry-Birds

Sunbirds are one of our favourite birds in North Queensland. They are small in size, but big on character. Because of their size, they are easy prey for the carnivores of the avian world. To overcome this vulnerability they often build their nests very close to humans. When she lived in Mackay, one of my sisters had a sunbird nest built at head height, directly over her washing machine. It made washing day a little awkward, but the nestlings were assured of their safety and security from most predators.

In spite of their size they are very brave little fellows. This was proven this morning when frantic chattering and chirping made me investigate the cause of the disturbance.

This was one of the chirpers, swinging back and forth on a coat hanger as she vented her spleen (do birds have spleens?) in the direction of the fence. Can you see what she is so angry about? Hint: it's lurking on the top of the palings.

Before you folk with ophidiophobia (my new word for today - it means snake phobia, but you knew that) freak out, here is a close-up. Yes it is a bamboo snake. The sunbirds are intelligent little guys, but not intelligent enough to recognise that my snake is not real. The unreal snake has been very successful in doing what I hoped it would do. That is frightening off the feral, Indian Myna birds that poo on my washing and take over the environment from the native birds. 

I had to go out and remove the snake for the sake of the sunbird family. They would have worn themselves out with their distress and their chirping. So now the snake is on my kitchen sink. I am not an ophidiophobe. If it was a pretend spider, that would be a different thing.

Here is the reason for the sunbirds' consternation. I know she looks like a full grown sunbird and in physical size she is the same as her parents, but she was definitely not a fully fledged adult.  Her colours don't quite match the adults' colours. Only adult males have the iridescent blue bib. Females are entirely yellow underneath. Both parents have darker wing  and tail feathers. She sat on a branch a safe distance away while her parents courageously saw the snake off the premises. At first I thought she was another adult female until she wobbled a bit on her branch and nervously tried to steady herself. Then I saw she was wearing 'L' plates. Not really, but she was the bird equivalent of a teenage learner driver.

When I think of courageous mothers defending their young, I don't think of lions or any of the big animals who have size on their side. For courageous mothers, and fathers too by the way, you can't beat birds.

Holidays are over

Now that we are after-hours caretakers of a charitable home we don't have a lot of time to get away together - especially not if we want to be away for more than a couple of hours. Usually Mr Sunshine has to teach on weekdays and I have commitments to grandchildren and a Bible Study group. So while schools were on Christmas holiday break we took the opportunity to get out during the day when we could.

In early January we had a relaxing day trip to Tully with Cheetah. Tully is the rainfall capital of Australia, although there have been times when (shock, horror) they have been accused of topping up their official rain gauge in order to maintain that reputation. Obviously having the highest rainfall is a great source of community pride - even more important than maintaining your communal meteorological integrity. Things have settled down these days and it's all water under the bridge.

So proud are they of their achievements in the race to the top of the precipitation stakes that they built a giant gum boot with a spiral staircase inside. That is Mr Sunshine looking out from the top of the boot and Cheetah sitting on the foot. The sign inside the boot tells you all of the important data about Tully's rainfall.

From the top of the boot you get an excellent view of the Tully Sugar Mill. Sugar cane, banana, paw paw and pineapple farms blanket the landscape from Rollingstone to the Daintree, but sugar cane dominates. Unfortunately sugar cane is also responsible for a  dark stain on Queensland's history when Pacific Islanders were tricked into leaving their islands and  forced into virtual slavery on many farms.

An unexpected delight of the day was the colony of woven bird nests near the giant gum boot. I have since found out that they are Metallic Starlings (also called Shining Starlings). Apparently their colonies can grow so large and heavy that they bring down tree branches and as the nests lay crushed and scattered on the ground the goannas, bandicoots, rats and snakes clean up the mess of injured birds and nestlings. Note to self: this idea could be sold to the creators of Angry Birds.

On the way home we saw a sign to Murray Falls which neither of us had ever heard of so we rounded out the day by taking a 20 kilometer detour that was well worth the effort. Apart from the main falls, there is a series of rapids and pools that turbulate like a washing machine. Here I have to apologise for not having a better photo, but we were under attack while trying to enjoy the spectacular scenery. March flies the size of baby elephants bit us and tormented us until we gave up and left.

Note to self: never, ever go bush without insect repellent!



Ladybug Days

Juliet is working on a couple of days a week. Actually, as mum of 1 year old Ladybug, she is working 7 days a week. That is what mums do. But Juliet has a job that she gets paid for as well which is a bonus, except that I'm sure she misses little Ladybug while she is away at work and Ladybug misses her too. On the day that I have her we do our best to keep Ladybug busy and entertained, but it's not hard because she is a very good Ladybug.

A couple of weeks ago Ladybug borrowed our boss's toy clown called Buttons. Buttons did very well playing with Ladybug and making sure she was happy.

This week we decided to go to the McTavish home while they were away on holidays and play with the cousins toys and not just the toys. Like all little girls, Ladybug likes shoes, but she is not a slave to fashion. She really liked spending the day in Monkey's joggers and socks even though she had two pairs of shoes of her own in her bag.

Aunty MMcT's childproof cupboard doors were another source of fun. Apparently rattling them very fast makes a great noise.

Best of all there was the boys' bunk beds. They have a camo net around the bottom bunk which is fun to hide behind and say, "Heyooohhhh", in a singsong voice over and over and Lion has a huge toy Lion that you can snuggle up to and pretend to go to sleep.

Even better than "best of all" is the top bunk. Up there you can be taller than everyone, especially Grannysaurus.  It's so high that Ladybug could almost touch the stars on the ceiling.

You can feel very brave being soooo high up even if it is a tiny bit scary.

Going Quackers

It was THE Saturday night that Dragon had been waiting for. The big kindy night where they do their end of year production. It was to be combined with my church's Carols by Candlelight under the rain trees and mango trees in the playground. Up to 300 people attend most years. Dragon had a speaking part too. He was to be the inn-keeper. You know the one  - the good inn-keeper who didn't kick the young pregnant mum out on a winter's night, but let them stay in his warm stable.

Mummy McTavish thought it would be a good idea if Grannysaurus went along to help with the boys since Wolf McTavish had to go to work. So it was all planned until...   I received an email from my church letting us know that the evening had to be cancelled due to the possibility of rain. Mummy McTavish wasn't entirely convinced because she had not received notification from the kindy, so we decided to go ahead as planned and resort to plan B if we had to.

We arrived at kindy/church to find the kindy teachers sending everyone home because it really was cancelled. Big disappointment for the boys, but when we told them about Plan B they quickly recovered.  Plan B was to go back to the Dragonlady Grotto, pick up some stale bread and head down to the river to feed the ducks, turtles and fish.

It promised some great photo opportunities with the boys in their Christmas shirts. Wrong(ish)!
Three excited boys standing still for more than 0.5 seconds - impossible!
Three little blow flies all looking at the camera at the same time - impossible!
Three little comedians all smiling angelically at the same time - impossible!

I took a few photos, but not the carefully composed family groups that I had in mind, so I decided to put them in a slide show for you.

The most exciting part of the afternoon for the boys?  What could be more exciting than a shopping trolley dumped in the river by vandals?  To think - some poor kids only get to go to Sea World and Dream World. They don't know what they are missing out on.

Oh, and the rain? Check out the sky in the photos, but it did rain eventually - late that night and the next morning.

"Picnik Show"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Stealing his thunder

It was Mr Sunshine's birthday recently, so we all met up at Romeo and Juliet's place to have tea together and celebrate. After a delightful dinner (where, as usual, I forgot to put some of the food out and found the potato salad and coleslaw still untouched in their containers as we were packing up) it was time for THE CAKE - a rich choc mousse concoction from Cakes on Carthew. The grandkids all gathered around to sing Happy Birthday to Grandad and for a happy family photo.  Just as the song ended and Mr Sunshine got ready to blow out his candle, Lion gave in to a tempting impulse and beat him to it.

I love the look on Mr Sunshine's face. How did I capture the split second instant as the flame flickered before it snuffed out? I'm glad you asked because the timing is entirely due to my great knowledge and skill as a photographer really, really good luck.

Poor Mr Sunshine - all puffed up and nowhere to blow.

Moving up

I have been a slack blogger. I admit it - guilty as charged. I could say I have some good excuses, but they are still excuses and it isn't as though I couldn't have written something. But "something" isn't necessarily worth reading.  There are a lot of things I can't write about now.
I can't write much about our natural environment because we are no longer living at the beach.  We have moved back into town as caretakers for a charity organisation. It is probably best that I say little about that in case I breach some security or privacy protocols of which I am ignorant.
So I can't write about where I live.
I can't write much about the grandchildren since I have so few new photos of them to post because I wasn't snapping any. I had an eye problem that dragged on for months that made photography difficult. That is now 95% fixed.
Then there was the coughing virus and the tendinitis in my right hand (my camera weighs over a kilogram - ouch) and the packing up and moving and a week in Brisbane for a family funeral.
In other words, life just got in the way for a while.

Now I'm back in form and doing things to make the creative juices flow. A day with Juliet and Ladybug helped. My grandkids are all sooooo photogenic. [Totally unbiased grandparent opinion.]

As we were passing the helipad at the hospital we saw the emergency helicopter had landed. We decided to wait and watch it take off. We were not disappointed. One of the crew waved to Ladybug and blew her lots of kisses. He was a sweetie! He kept waving as the helicopter lifted off. He was high in the air and still waving when he finally had to close the door.

One last photo because it intrigues me that the blades of the helicopter appear so distorted. I'm not sure if it is just the phone camera lens causing it or if it is a genuine distortion of the blades caused by the uplift, downdraft or whatever.

Only the blades are distorted so I don't think it is a lens distortion. If there are any aerodynamics engineers out there, feel free to leave an explanation in my comments.

More of nature

Something you don't see every day.

Blue winged kookaburras are common here at the beach, but I think our blue winged kooka's have the most spectacular colours of any I have ever seen. This fellow was snapped with the camera flash (I know the experts detest direct flash, but I don't carry around a ton of camera gear - mainly because I don't own a ton of camera gear).

It was late in the afternoon and the natural light wasn't picking up the iridescence of his blue feathers, so it had to be a flash. I'm not sorry. It has turned out to be my favourite kookaburra photo.

 

Another new favourite photo.

I photographed this water lily as the late afternoon sun was fading fast. The pond was already in shadow, but the petals were catching the last few rays. No flash for this one, just soft natural light and lucky timing.

Soon the McTavish clan are going to see some dinosaurs. Lets hope for some great photos on their blog when they get back. It's been a busy time for all of us lately, but blogging should return to normal soon. Normal is a very relative term, isn't it?