Rowan Tree

It looks like it is going to be a cold winter!

(Well that is the old-wives tale when the berries look bright isn’t it? Are we allowed to call it an old-wives tale these days, it seems very un-PC? Also, I don’t want my wife to take offence.)

Gradually each of the larger shrubs or trees in the garden are producing their berries and the result is spectacular. The photo to the right is the rowan tree at the back of the garden which is the best ever.

Usually one or two bushes sparkle, but this year I think they are all doing so. The colours are exquisite and they haven’t finished yet. The berries act as a food store for the poor birds once the ground hardens and the worms and insects can’t be found.

We have cut back a lot of trees this year and this has helped the sun get to some of the bushes, but the hot and lengthy summer definitely has helped.

Pond drones

In preparing for this blog I took the time to watch the pond. Our pond is a reasonable size but suffers from too many reeds. No matter how many times I cut them down they come back in force. This year I have pulled a large number out which has improved things at present. But like mutating aliens they will be back again in the spring.

Apparently, you can drown reeds. This seems a bit counter intuitive to me but apparently it is the best way to rid yourself of some of them. I plan to spend some of next week water boarding them to see if it works. Desperate souls seek desperate measures.

I was mesmerised by the dragonflies and one in particular. If ever there was something that I wish I could get inside its head, then it is this emperor dragonfly. They fly right up to me as I stand and watch. Just far enough away that they can look at me closely but equally far enough away that I can’t move before they are gone. I tried taking photographs but to no avail. Lots of snaps of the empty pond.

When I make my fortune I will invest in a camera that allows me to achieve this. But don’t expect this any time soon!

It rides above the pond like a drone, stopping perfectly still except for the fluttering wings and monitoring the pond like a school prefect. It seems to be a creature that is too quick for the cats, although the cats do leap up and try to catch them if they get close.

They also seem to be able to fly forever. I am sure they have to land but they easily outlasted my patience.

Owl Song Contest (again)

I know I have probably talked about our owls too much already in previous weeks but I am going to push your patience a little further. One night this week the owls were in five trees in the back garden all calling to each other in turn.

It was just like choir practice. So impressed were we, that I turned off all the lights and crept around the house trying to see what was singing right in front of my eyes, blinded by the dark.

In fact, I was so blinded that I fell over a pair of metal garden ornaments and they fell down onto my bare feet. Crippled I staggered back to the light to find it was a tiny scratch almost too small to see. Expecting to wake up in the night with internal bleeding, I slept like a baby.

And I think we have some challenges!

I was contacted by my favourite Australian auntie this week, (I actually only have one so it makes it easy). She reads this blog with a strange mixture of feelings. On the one hand it reminds her of times past when she lived on these fair shores and enjoyed the gardens of home and family. But my ramblings about wildlife are somewhat put into perspective when she wanders out into her own garden with every chance that she will meet a funnel-web spider, one of 100 venomous snakes or various unpleasant insects.

However, her current predicament is something more water based. She lives near a lake that is five times the size of Sydney harbour.  That rather trumps the lake in next door’s garden!

This particular lake is the favourite swimming spot of many local families including her grandsons and family. They spend many a weekend floating around the lake in a boat enjoying the water and local shoreline. Recently sharks have been spotted in the water, and not just any sharks – Hammerheads. Now I don’t know that much about sharks but I do know that there is no way I would ever go into the water again if that happened in my pond.

So hats off to my Australian relatives and I hope that this problem resolves itself quickly before someone comes a cropper. We’ve watched the recent series of Wolf Creek (which we would highly recommend), but this is far scarier. I have to say Wolf Creek does not exactly paint Australia as the ideal tourist destination, even for those hardened criminals amongst us.

The cat mafia move in

It has seemed like the cats have been watching films of their own this week. The godfather is the particular film I had in mind. Ok we have not had any horse heads presented, but we were given a headless pigeon on Tuesday followed by a Rabbits head on Wednesday morning. I wondered for a short while whether the movie they had watched was actually Frankenstein and they were about to bolt the rabbits head on to the pigeon, but that is probably an image you didn’t want me to leave you with.

I’ve actually been sitting for half the time writing this blog with one of the cats on my shoulders. Maybe he is keeping his eye on the blog to ensure he is not misrepresented.

Have a great weekend!

Picture Round

Several people did slightly better with the pictures last week so I have pitched them at a similar level this week. I did think about a picture of the Rabbitpigeon but maybe another time.

The answers will come out on Saturday, although it will be evening as I am away.

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