Anzac Day

Today is a Public Holiday as it is Anzac Day, commemorating the Gallipoli landings and all Australian and New Zealand service men who have died for their country.
As all the schools are closed for the day Yorkeys Knob School held their service yesterday which I was able to attend.

The picture were taken with my phone and the quality is not the greatest.
Yesterday was also the childrens Cross Country - a far cry from the horrible weather I remember doing it in, that said I was not too impressed that it was being held just after midday when the temperature was the hottest (over 30 degrees). Long distance running is never a popular choice in our household but they all competed and what more can you ask.
When they were back home and Tish had emerged Xanthe got to play "make-up the zombie" - note these were TISH'S words NOT mine....

Tish then showed Xanthe how to do it:
Before

After

During the morning the children went down to the play park whilst I did a few things around the house.
As it was a holiday there were several other children around the park so when I went and joined them I was not able to take many pictures - well just this one

Yellow Potter Wasp..

...well I think this is what it is, it is certainly a mud wasp species.
I was sitting outside on the deck this morning when I noticed a rather large black and yellow wasp flying around - a good inch in length.

It seemed to be carrying something and was very interested in the fan blades on one of our outside cooling fans. It buzzed around ridiculously fast and was virtually impossible to get any decent flight pictures with either of our cameras, these are the best that I managed

as I got more shots and looked at them on the camera it quickly became clear that she was carrying a ball of mud. Further investigations were called for and I went and got our step ladder.
On checking the upper surface of the fan blades I quickly found the source of her interest

she is building a nest, by holding our old Fuji camera with a LCD screen I was able to get this shot of her with the mud ball

Over the next couple of hours she was a regular visitor, but not wanting to disturb her at first I only managed these rather distant shots of building in progress

I wanted to try and get some better pixs so I moved the ladder closer and waited. After a very short while she was back and came to inspect me, she got so close that I was completely unable to get the cameras in focus. I did manage to get some better shots

When the nest is finished she will lay one egg and feed her larva live food - more photo opps me thinks!

Breakfast

Tish is about to start a few weeks doing predominantly nights so on Monday having packed the children off to school we decided to go an have a relaxing breakfast along the waterfront so we could have some time together.
Very nice it was too...

the back drop was pretty impressive.
The breakfast is a buffet style set up in a local hotel that is open to non hotel residents. So we spent a good hour and a half stuffing our faces (and not needing to eat at all for the rest of the day)
We started off with fresh fruit, then a cooked breakfast, toast, muffins, danish pastry and cheese and biscuits. All of which was accompanied with copious amounts of coffee and fruit juice

It was so good that some unwanted locals tried to crowd in....

Its the weekend....

The first week of the new term is over and we have three tired and grumpyish kids so a quiet weekend at home is the order of the day. In addition to the normal school routine Hamish went to Scouts this Thursday and had a great time - no Scouts next week as Thursday is Anzac Day and therefore a Public Holiday.
Anyway back to today...
Tish was delivering an Antenatal class this morning and the rest of us decided to stay at home and get on with domestic chores / play depending upon your age!
In between hanging up the washing and other equally gripping activities we also took back the plants we had been looking after for Alan and Jen whilst they were away (contrary to popular belief I must have slightly green fingers as not only did everything survive but they were impressed at how much they had grown!).
Hidden away in Alans shed was his old fishing trolly which he no longer used and thought the children would enjoy, he was right..

At one stage they had an interested audience...

this sunbird is still checking out our windchime.
Once Tish was back she had some preparations to do for next weeks class so we were all out side

I did some weeding around the herb garden

we have basil, garlic chives, lemon grass, ginger and tumeric all growing nicely as well as

some hot Birdseye Chillis - in fact chilli is on the menu tomorrow so we shall see what they are like.
Our fruit selection is growing nicely and we have several sourpus fruits that are almost ready to go

Its 6pm now so am off to cook pizza

Butterflies and things...

As Tish was due to be recovering from a nightshift I had decided to head to Cattana to chase a few butterflies. As is often the case plans don't always go as originally intended and Tish's shift was cancelled. I still headed to Cattana as it was quite warm and muggy which hopefully would mean that there were lots of butterflies in the air.
As soon as I arrived I could see that i was going to be in luck as there was lots on the wing.
I managed to get a few shots of this

Small Green-Banded Blue when something far more colourful caught my eye and I started to stalk it.
Unfortunately I never managed to identify it as I was distracted.
My attention was caught by a Large-Billed Gerygone - heres one Jo photographed earlier...

this particular bird was carrying food so I kept watching in the hopes of finding another nest or some recently fledged chicks. 

I certainly found the recently fledged chick it was feeding but it was not the species I was expecting...

the object of all the frenzied feeding was in fact a Little Bronze-Cuckoo. Despite watching for nearly 20 mins I never managed to get a picture of the cuckoo being fed.
I was then distracted yet again by a very common bird the Spangled Drongo. These are common visitors to our garden but I have never seen one that looked like this.
Normally they are an iridescent black

This one though looked completely different

I used to see Carrion Crows with similar white feathers on the wings in the UK a very attractive aberration.
Tomorrow Black Mountain Road calls.......

End of hols....

The Easter Hols are finally virtually over and today was the special end of hols "bleach day" with the house being cleaned from top to bottom and ALL the toys sorted out....need I say more.
To add insult to injury on Monday Tish starts the first of three night shifts, so in honour of these two events we thought this clip was appropriate.
Enjoy....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz0dvPZhaTU

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Changing Seasons

The weather has certainly changed this week. We have had a constant drizzle for the last three or four days and the resulting temperatures have been much lower, peaks of no more than 26 or 27 and night time temps of 20 or lower. I suspect that once the rain has finished the temperatures will increase but not back to the levels of February - autumn / winter is well on its way.
In addition to the weather there have been some notable changes to the local bird life.
Two species in particular are around in greatly reduced numbers as the majority have headed off north to PNG for the winter.
Torresian Imperial Pigeon

is a common visitor to the northern parts of Australia. Historically flocks of tens of thousand could be seen migrating north across the Torres Straights to PNG for the winter. Numbers declined drastically as they were very heavily hunted to the point that there were probably only a few thousand migrating back to Australia to breed each year. As a result they were restricted to off shore islands and cays on the Reef, with adults coming to the mainland to feed each day. Over the last few decades their numbers have recovered and they are now a common site once again - in fact on the Low Islands to the north of us I think the peak count this summer was in excess of 30000 birds. They have also started to breed on the mainland again which is good. There are still some around, and a few will over winter here but instead of seeing groups of 40+ I now only see the odd single bird.
The other notable absentee is the Metallic Starling

This noisy colonial nester has been a common feature in the palm trees in the main car park at Smithfields shopping centre since we have been here. Now the car parks are silent and the stronger winds have blown many of the nests down. Up until about a fortnight ago they were probably more common than ever in Yorkeys as they used the trees along the high street to roost in, there were often a couple of thousand birds knocking around. In the last few days though there numbers have dropped and whilst some will probably over winter the majority have headed north.
On the plus side there has been an increase in the visibility of these beauties

we have always had the odd single knocking around but now these cockatoos are going around in gangs of up to 35 and very noisy they are to as Tish will attest to as they kept her awake when she was trying to sleep before a night shift!
The last couple of weeks we seem to have done nothing but entertain which has been great but not exactly photogenic.
Xanthe did go to an art course over the holidays. This one was I think looking at pop art in particular the style of Andy Warhol (never have understood the appeal of cans of soup....)
These are Xanthes efforts