Crikey!

Life as I know it ends mid to late October!

No more ticks

The post-Covid malaise continues but now augmented by repeated and ridiculous rate rises. The result being that there's no will or money to do much at all and so absolutely nothing is happening!

Getting into the DIY - New ensuite cabinets, mirror and lighting

Saying that, in light of the news in the post above, we'd likely be saving every penny anyway. And so we've been doing a bit of DIY here and there as some preliminary preparation and only really getting out locally for a bit of fishing and gentle strolls in the bush. I did catch a couple of new species recently though which made a bit of a change.

The ubiquitous Tarwhine

Striped Cardinalfish - apparently quite rare

Aptly named Painted Grinner

Starfish (Astropecten vappa) on a rod and line!

But we're off on a road-trip to Queensland tomorrow to see my brother-in-law and family and so a return to the mangroves and woodland around Brisbane is on the cards. A couple of possible ticks up there. They'd be the first of the year. A sorry effort.

Wildlife cam

Nothing in the Daintree except us coming back from dinner

The trail camera has been up and running in various locations over the past few months and one of the big mysteries has now been solved. Small holes were appearing in the lawns at both our place and also up at the In-laws'. It's a bit weird considering Rog and Maria haven't seen such a phenomenon in all their time at Woodford but now the holes seem to be showing up everywhere.

Our local Brush-tailed Possum

Woodford Possum

It took a while to capture the culprit but the camera got there in the end and in both locations it turned out to be a Long-nosed Bandicoot. Perhaps there's been a recent population explosion.

Tracking down our Long-nosed Bandicoot

Woodford Bandicoot

The Brush-tailed Possums also show up everywhere but a strange beast was then caught prowling along the Woodford fence-line. Most likely a fox but possibly something more sinister?

The 'Woodford Beast'

We also managed to catch the local Magpie harrassing a young Crimson Rosella. The prosecution rests...

Naughty Magpie

Merry Christmas

The weekend before last news came through of a vagrant wader just up the road on the north edge of Newcastle. You guessed it folks - an Asian Dowitcher #521! After the repeated dipping in Cairns the birding gods smiled down on me and I was able to add it belatedly to the list. Happy days.

Stockton Sandspit - Tick!

As we reach the end of the year hopefully the pandemic is now well and truly behind us. Hopefully La Nina is also now behind us - at least for a few years anyway - and let's hope it's all back to normal from next year. 

Wishing you all a merry Christmas and all the very best in 2023.

The tropical north

The road to Cooktown

Hot on the heels of my sister, Mum and Dad also managed to pay us a visit in the spring as, finally, also did the Covid which Mum kindly brought down from Scotland with her! Luckily we were only side-lined for a couple of days and were able to head up to tropical North Queensland as planned.

A selection of North Queensland frogs - It's good for frogs up there!

After a few days at the legendary Kingfisher Park birdwatchers' lodge up in the Cairns hinterland we headed north over the river into the Daintree rainforest wilderness before ending our stay in Cairns itself.

Saltwater Croc at Ingham

The 'Big Gumboot' at Tully - Australia's wettest town apparently

Kingfisher Park and surrounds delivered Graceful Honeyeater #516 (now known as the Cryptic Honeyeater by most folks), Northern Fantail #517, and the skulking and highly sought after Red-necked Crake #518. The local Platypus and a hefty Northern Brown Bandicoot also put in appearances.

Snorkelling on the reef

The Daintree is known for the Cassowary and, although Dad, Emily, and I encountered one on the first morning on our way to snorkelling on the reef, we didn't find one with Mum until the very last evening when we saw three in the space of a few minutes.

Fiddler Crab

Cassowary

An Asian Dowitcher has been hanging out on the mud-flats of the Cairns esplanade for quite a while now and, although it was reported during our stay, extensive searching failed to turn it up. During one of our searches a local bloke on a bicycle gave us details of the nearby daytime roosts of a Rufous Owl #519 and Papuan Frogmouth #520. Pretty solid compensation.

Rufous Owl

Papuan Frogmouth

Nesting Bush Stone-curlew

My folks gave us a night-vision wildlife trail camera while they were down and so now I have the equipment to uncover the mystery of the holes that appear in my back lawn from time to time, what's flattening the grass at the bottom of my in-laws' yard, and is it really wallaby poo next to my letterbox. Watch this space...

A night at the opera

Back to the bird-fields

Echidna in the front garden

Well the international border was finally opened again a few months back and so I was able to see family again after a depressing couple of years of isolated exile. Kath wasted no time and was down here at the end of August.

Bondi

Sadly we're still suffering the unprecedented effects of three La Nina years in a row. This meant a very un-Australian amount of rain on the east coast and so we were forced to travel inland a bit in search of finer weather. We ended up spending a few days in country NSW in Orange which was a pretty random selection but proved dry despite the freezing cold.

Into the red dirt

Orange is also just about close enough to get in a (fairly long) day trip to the mallee country west of Condobolin. The first issue out there was the sand roads and their deep mud-traps after all of the rain. Thank goodness for the 4WD which saved us from certain bogging and being stranded in the middle of nowhere for goodness knows how long. Thankfully Kath kept cool among the swarming flies and plotted a safe route out through the trees, of which a few had to be removed! I'll therefore forgive her for a rather enthusiastic close approach to a passing deadly snake. I'm fairly sure it was a Mulga Snake but I wasn't getting too close to the head end for a full diagnostic assessment.

Home of the heathwren

Anyway, amid my panic at the situation into which I had blundered, I was able to pick off a pair of Shy Heathwren #515 and a first addition to the list in a very long time.

House guests

As you know we've not been getting out and about too much but in Australia you can generally sit back and let the wildlife come to you.

Sydney Funnel-web

The house has still not been breached by spiders but a few weeks back we did have our first encounter with a Sydney Funnel-web just outside the front door. It was incredibly aggressive rearing up and showing off it's impressive fangs but the funnel-web is slow and can't jump or climb smooth surfaces and so it's easy enough to catch them in a Tupperware box. You still need to be careful though as they can apparently bite through the plastic and at the end of the day they can kill you. The local hospitals accept live specimens to milk for anti-venom but I'm ashamed to admit that they don't stay alive for too long round my place.

Golden-crowned Snake

Although the spiders haven't entered the house yet, the snakes have! The Tupperware box was out again when we came across a Golden-crowned Snake behind a chest-of-drawers in the downstairs bedroom. It was only a young one maybe 25-30cm long and so it wasn't too much of a problem to catch it and put it safely outside. They are mildly venomous and so despite being pretty placid I'm glad it wasn't a fully grown adult at 70-80cm.

Jack on his perch

Jack's back! After several months of absence Emily was working in her office when Jack the magpie casually strolled in through the open door sporting his new adult plumage. He'd come in through his window and then searched the house to find Emily. Of course he was rewarded with some kangaroo mince. Nice to see he still remembers us.

Queensland

Well we did manage to make it up to Queensland for a week in late January to visit Emily's brother and family and remarkably we also remain Covid-free. Sadly though it seems that we're still trapped in lockdown habits and apart from that one trip north there's not been much going on.

Koala

I didn't have high hopes of adding to my list around Brisbane but I gave it a good go. At least for two days anyway. I spent a first day tramping kilometres through woodland and forest hoping for a glimpse of the White-eared Monarch. No joy but some small consolation in the more exotic locals such as Red-backed Fairy-wren, Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove and a Koala.

A hot day in the mangroves

A change of tack on the second day saw me head to the coast in search of mangrove specialities. I'm not normally a big fan of mangrove boardwalks but the one at Nudgee Beach is pretty special winding for a couple of kilometres through some really nice mangrove forest and getting out into fairly deep water. This meant that the fish-spotting was almost as good as the bird-watching.

Short-eared Brushtail Possum

Still no ticks though. I probably had the Mangrove Honeyeater but probably isn't definitely and so that one remains off the list for now. I was surprised to stumble across a possum out in the water but apparently the Short-eared Brushtail Possum doesn't mind getting it's feet wet. Despite being covered head-to-toe in insect repellent, the mosquitoes and extreme heat had the final say in my birding adventures. I awoke on the third day covered in a terrible rash and that was that.

Coff's Harbour jetty

On the way back south we stopped for a couple of nights at Coff's Harbour where the turtles were swarming around the pier as usual. This time I also had my fishing gear and so we had a great evening session fishing into the night. Emily kicked things off with a nice Pufferfish before we had a couple of Stout Whiting and a Flathead before I hooked a Shovelnose Ray. A bizarre half-ray-half-shark this thing was pushing a metre long which is a problem when you're standing on top of a pier with light gear. Emily started hauling it up hand over hand as a crowd gathered but about two thirds of the way up it gave a kick and my 12lb line broke to the disappointment of all. I rounded out the night with a solid Estuary Catfish which did make it up to the top of the pier. Sadly no pictures as it was too dark but a top evening and the best part of the trip!

A good Cane Toad is a flattened one!

Happy New Year

One of our resident Tawny Frogmouths

Well let's just forget that last year happened at all shall we? Plenty of lock-down. No new birds for the first year ever. It's been a shocker and, along with everybody else I'm sure, I'm just glad it's all over. Let's hope that 2022 brings a return to some sort of normality. 

A small Diamond Python at my in-laws' place

A larger individual at Bobbin Head

It's already getting off to a better start as we're hopefully driving up to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland on Friday to visit my brother-in-law and family. I say 'hopefully' as we've all got to provide negative covid tests before we go and that virus is everywhere at the moment including my office and pretty much any shop that you dare to set foot in. As long as I get my holiday in before it inevitably gets me...

Arthur - Our back-yard Blue-tongue

Jack - Our juvenile 'pet' Magpie

No particular target ticks to be had up in Queensland but I may be lucky enough to run into something new. It'll just be great to get out of town for a bit.

Back garden

The lack of doing anything has meant that we've spent a solid year working in the new garden though. It's coming along very nicely with new hedges planted, a native rockery built, and my frangipani cutting suddenly bursting into life with the recent warm weather. The La Nina weather pattern this year means lots of rain and so things are growing rapidly which is great when you're trying to establish new plants but awful when you're out with the lawnmower and the hedging shears every other week. Hot work.

About the only house picture I have

I've been looking through the few photos I have from the past year and discovered that I still have hardly any pictures of the actual house and garden. I'll have to add some in the future. Just over a year in the place now and still not a single spider. I'm actually starting to relax for the first time in years.

Broad-tailed Geckos are still filling the spider niche

We only managed one single night away from Sydney last year when we popped down to Canberra at Easter. Enticed there by the impressive-sounding 'Sky Whales' we turned up pre-dawn in front of the old parliament house to find a huge crowd watching the inflation of two hot air balloons with associated chanting and 'atmospheric' music. The Sky Whales were hideous creatures with many over-sized breasts depicting the increasing patriarchal role of mothers in the modern family unit. Art apparently.

Sky Whale

Yes Mr Frogmouth, I agree!