A former resident of Canberra complained today on talkback radio about how the city had become “tatty” during her brief absence. Apparently her family now lives somewhere up the north coast and have green lawns. The difference I reckoned was that the ACT region has missed out again in late autumn with our miserable share of La Nina.
Out on the western fringe of suburbia a few local residents have been watching two strange visitors for a week or so. Opposite my place is another dead tree, a large Eucalyptus nicholii that was planted as a street tree back in the early 1970’s. A few bird droppings on parked cars was the first clue. My neighbor pointed up to some high branches and eventually I recognized the shapes, a pair (?) of tawny frogmouths perched motionless in the higher branches.
This messy old tree would normally have been condemned as a neighborhood hazard and removed on schedule with many others, however overnight it became “habitat” for what I believe after glimpsing another big wary gray bird on the outer limb late yesterday, two young owls left day by day by their parents.
Despite prying eyes, noisy cars, trucks and machinery underneath these beautifully camouflaged individuals remained seemingly motionless for days. Unfortunately I think a gang of currawongs has finally driven them off.
Note the clear blue sky in my latest photo.
Gavin
The ABC finally gets the message. We have only been telling them this for two decades.
So when can we expect the MDB Commission to adjust all catchment flows for the impacts of past clearing and subsequent regrowth? How long will these clowns persist in pretending that current flows are unchanged from pre-settlement flows?
What floods?
Remember the bit about bushfires high in the mountain ranges? Apparently many thousands of acres of burnt bush struggling back to life further reduce annual flows from the east
The ABC tonight was carrying on about the "death" of the Murray. Those big dead River Reds will be a marvelous habitat when the floods come.
Jonathan, Tamborine Mtn. The big dead trees with the big holes and termite mounds are the favourites. Forest Kingfishers and Kookaburras dig into the mounds for nests. Wood Ducks have 8 or 10 ducklings in them then kick them out before they can fly and they all waddle off to the pond.
The Tawny Frogmouths lay their eggs on a virtual bare branch or fork and the chicks teeter on oblivion.
They all struggle on, even the Glossies.
When they finally fall it's very sad.
After events near home today, I should write an update
One has been sitting on the clothes line down at the farm on and off since my father died in 1993. We told the kids it was grandad come back to keep an eye on things. Now much older and wiser, they still maintain that particular family myth. He was there again last weekend.