The 'Exposure'

I have finished my orientation day on the ward today. My brain is mush, now I realise some of you may ask well what is the difference? I can barely string a sentence together and I can just about remember my name if I keep looking at my ID badge! The staff however are great very welcoming and friendly, and I am looking forward to working now. The only concern I have is for the general public as I said a few posts back I am exposing a bits of my anatomy that haven't been exposed to sunlight since I moved to the UK eighteen years ago!!

My knees and legs are white, bright, fat and shiny. They look like to great big sausages sticking out of a blue shorts pan! The top has no mercies either and shows of my lovely Michelan Tyre Man modelling well don't you think??? Its truly frightening and I can only apologise to all those I care for. Apart from looking like a lumberjack or a scary version of teh marshmellow man off of Ghostbusters (imagine this image with a black helmet) the plus side is my legs get a fantastic breeze when I ride my bike!
I am looking forward to many more days as an outback midwife despite the sheer lunacy of putting a fat bird like me in such a uniform!
To all my family and friends love you all and keep smilin'.

Barking Mad

Another glorious day - not sure that we mention the weather enough on the blog so a quick summary of the last week. Hot and dry!
This morning decide to try East Point a favoured site for two NT specialities Rainbow Pitta and Rose-crowned Fruit Dove. I got flight views (again) of the dove and not a hint of the Pitta.
What I did get though were nice views of the largest member of the cuckoo family a Channel-billed Cuckoo. If I were a small bird I would be petrified if this thing came to lay an egg in my nest.

There were still a few waders knocking around on the reefs - the highlight for me being a very distant Terek Sandpiper with a group of Grey-tailed Tattlers.

A very poor shot but you can see the up-turned bill!

Back home an e-mail from the local NT Bird group got me cycling down to the local cricket oval (about 900m away) with the camera to see if a pair of owls were still around.

These are a pair of Barking Owls!

The BBQ went very well yesterday although two of the guests never arrived so tea this evening was left overs!
Tomorrow is the Big Day with Tish on an early shift.

Red-capped Plover

An early posting today that is purely bird related - we have work colleagues of Tish's coming over for a BBQ tonight so thought would blog early.
Another opportunity to head off to Buffalo Creek again this morning. The tide was way down and only slowly rising so the going was much harder than last weekend. that said still saw 48 species including a couple of new ones. Unfortunately the best bird a Black-necked Stork or Jabiru, was too distant and in the wrong light to get any pictures at all which was very disappointing.
Compensation though came in the form of a group of red-capped plovers that were getting very territorial on the beach. These waders are very small but absolutely fearless when defending their patch. This group were happy to have a go at masked lapwings, egrets and even me!
I stumbled onto this nest..

The female then tried to distract me with the typical wader wing drooping hobble. I moved off to a safe distance and set up the camera to try and get some photos.

This is the female after she had successfully distracted me away from her nest.

A group of three slightly jumpy males.

More tomorrow.

Late birthday pressie

A bity day today. It was Tish's second full day of orientation, she left at about 0720 this morning and a zombie in the shape of Tish returned at 1600, first proper shift on Monday - look out for the photos of the uniform!
Cameron recieved two parcels today - his birthday present from Auntie Jo. A safari kit which he was most taken with..

The irony was that we had just returned from a quick trip to Knuckey Lagoon - Cameron wanted to get straight back into the car and go back out again but I had some paperwork I needed to complete - most notably my CV and contact with Charles Darwin University.

My attempts at digiscoping continue to have mixed results. The highlights photgraphic wise from today (blogger software allowing) are

Grey Butcherbird

Little Pied Cormorant - trying to hide in some distant reeds

Green Pygmy Goose

male Australasian Darter

Intermediate Egret

"headless" Comb-crested Jacana

Back home we had a pair of Australasian Figbirds feeding in the garden (photos taken with normal camera not our digiscope set up).

Apologies for above photo can't delete it blogger wont let me!

 The day finished off with a "mini" gecko on the window of the boys room.

Orientating Tish

Well folks I suppose today was officially my first day at work although today and tomorrow are two days of orientation so although important I don't really count them as we got to wear our civvies. Uniform start day of work is on Monday and I will give you a spoiler for Monday... I will just say there are bits of my anatomy that have not seen the light of day for quite some time and will be revealed on uniform day!
Orientation today was at the Charles Darwin University and what a lovely university it looks, it has beautiful grounds and I would have liked the opportunity to have a little more time to walk around. The grounds are open so that could be an option for a future date.
I met some of the nurses that start on the wards soon but as of yet no new midwives, although I'm not sure if there are any in this months orientation.
I got to ride my scooter to 'school' today and rode it in the rush hour so feel very proud of myself, still learning how to go around corners a bit more smoothly as sometimes it is still a little wobbly as when you slow down and loose the power you are not as stable on two wheels as you are on four!
Anyway thanks for all the well wishes for my first day and hope all you fellow midwives are flying the flag for our profession on International Day of the Midwife on the 5th May 2012, its exciting as I truly am an international midwife!
http://www.internationalmidwives.org/Whatwedo/InternationalDayoftheMidwife/InternationalDayoftheMidwife2012/tabid/1094/Default.aspx

Local wildlife - edible and non edible!

Today was a public holiday for ANZAC day (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps), in memory of Australian and New Zealand war dead at the Galipolli landings and other conflicts since then. Instead of Poppies most of the supermarkets sell ANZAC biscuits but unfortunately they had all run out by the time we came to shop.
This meant the kids were off school so I used the opportunity to go up to Buffalo Creek again - it was particularly exciting today as my new batteries for the camera had arrived and so I could try digiscoping.
I ended up taking over 85 photos of which no more than ten are half decent - the problem was getting the image in focus. It looked fine down the camera but when you clicked the shutter and looked at the result they were useless. Think I have solved it now - make sure the camera is at its lowest zoom and that the scope is in focus.
Here are the best birdy shots I gleaned:

Australian Pelican

Caspian Tern and Australian Pied Oystercatcher (still slightly out of focus)

Caspian Tern

Silver Gulls

Luckily I had started to get the hang of how to use it when I noticed a "bump" in the water..

Initially thought it was a log but then realised it was going across the current so I kept watching..

A rather large Saltwater Crocodile was drifting slowly south!
Well that's the inedible wildlife bit. The edible bit was our tea when we all had bits of the iconic Australian marsupial the kangaroo.. and very nice steaks they were too.

Bugs and Bikes

Today I am having a shot at writing this blog.

Last night was spent trying to find a bug of about 2cm in between a gap of about 2cm by 12cm long. He is a cicada and he is LOUD and more importantly in our bathroom between the shower and the bath cabinet.
Some interesting facts about cicadas:
1. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many of them remain unclassified.
2. They are LOUD
3.Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are among the most widely recognised of all insects, mainly due to their large size and unique sound.
4. They are LOUD.
5.  Many people around the world regularly eat cicadas.
6. They are LOUD and trust me I was considering eating him over the barbie with some garlic butter as another interesting thing about cicadas is they are LOUD.
This is little critter is similar to what he looked liked but imagine him brown and LOUD!

 (This image was taken from Wikipedia)

But despite the cicada mating call throughout the night as he was singing for a mate in our bathroom I did manage a few hours of sleep and awoke to another beautiful warm muggy morning in Darwin. After dropping the kids of at school Dom and I ventured to the Scooter hire shop and I hired a scooter for a month to get me to and from work whilst I await a little run-around car.

I am a bike chick and I've decided I'm gonna purchase a red bandanna, get a tat and call myself Rose!



However, looking at this pic it is just a fat chick on a bike!
We had another rather impressive rain storm this afternoon. People keep telling me we are entering the dry cool season.... really? I can't decide whether my menopausal night sweats are me or the fact that we still have 88% humidity and I insist the air con stays on and Dom is complaining it's freezing! For goodness sake......

An unexpected discovery.

The last couple of mornings I have made the most of Tish not being at work and have headed off to Buffalo Creek at first light to do some birding (my Oz list now stands at 125spp). Luckily the secure car park there is open from about 6am so I can leave the car safely and head off without any second thoughts - the staff are starting to recognise me and have already signed me in by the time I have parked up and gone round to the cabin to pay!
This weekend the tide has been high very early in the morning so I have not been able to walk as far as I would have liked as I have had to wait for the tide to drop enough for me to cross one small creek.
This has given me the opportunity though to sit quietly with the scope and enjoy some fantastic birding - if only the new battery packs for my digiscoping camera had arrived I would have had some frame filling shots of pelicans and egrets.
It has been great to sit and enjoy species that are very rare in UK / Europe such as Caspian, Lesser Crested and Crested Terns, Great Knot, Grey-Tailed Tattle and Greater Sandplover to name just a few
The mangrove forest comes alive for the first couple of hours and I have been lucky to find a couple of the mangrove specialities such as Green-backed Gerygone (restricted to coastal Northern Territories and the very north west corner of Western Australia), Mangrove Robin (found in any Mangrove forest in the northern half of Australia) and my new two favourite birds Rainbow Bee-eater (widely distributed and common across Australia but they are gorgeous and great little characters) and Beach Thick-knee (widely distributed around the northern and eastern coast of Australia but not common anywhere), these large waders are related to the Stone-Curlew that breeds in the Brecks in East Anglia but are on steroids in comparison, with huge bills. They are very stately and as I found out are quite approachable if you sit quietly - one walked to within 50m but guess what no camera!
This mornings expedition was cut short as the heavens opened - had forgotten just how hard it can rain in such a short space of time, to say I got soaked would be like saying it is warm over here!
Anyway the point was that I took shelter beside the remains of a WWII bunker and waited for the worst to pass, it was whilst I was there that I was watching what I assumed was just a stick getting washed closer and closer, I raised my bins to discover it was no ordinary "stick" and quickly waded out to get it...

It was a faded but still very beautiful didgeridoo (have googled and that is the correct spelling).
The details on it are superb..

It will now live outside our front door.
What a great addition to the house!

Pedals and Postern Gates..

After last nights wash out we decided to go for a gentle bike ride at East Point (unless of course it rained again!).
As this was our first ride for ages it all took far longer than anticipated to get the car ready..

The bike rack had been carefully packed away with all the screws being stored safely, unfortunately I could not remember where two of them were so after 20 mins managed to find them at the bottom of one of my tool boxes. Having attached the rack to the car putting the bikes on was another challenge, definitely a 3D jigsaw. After a couple of false starts they were all on and we set off to East Point.

The cycling is great as the paths are all tarmac and with very little gradient so Hamish was in his element. That said I still think Cameron has the right idea - get someone else to do the hard work and just enjoy the view with minimal effort..

In total we cycled about 4km - not bad given the heat!
When we got home everyone retired to the pool to cool off - great!
After a good soak it was time to rebuild the wooden castle. I had last seen it made into a castle in October 2011 and had very carefully taken several photos prior to taking it apart to aid this precise moment. As per the bolts for the cycle rack I saved the pictures but unlike the bolts I was unable to relocate them!
At the start of the afternoon I was confronted with this...

and roughly 45 minutes later I finished with this..

Job done!
He's so proud, now for model of Buck P! However, that might take considerably more stubbies and lots more swear words!

Weather forecasts!

Every day this week the forecast has followed the same pattern....
Monday, evening rain showers. It did not rain!
Tuesday, evening rain showers. It did not rain!
Wednesday, evening rain showers. It did not rain!
Thursday, evening rain showers. It did not rain!
So today even though the forecast said showers this evening we decided that we would go out for a picnic tea. Of course today was the day they got the forecast right and yes as soon as we were settled down for our nice sausage stew with french bread it started to rain! we tried sticking it out but when it got to the stage of Tish not being able to see through her glasses we called it a day, dashed back to the car getting absolutely soaked and drove home. As soon as we pulled into the drive yes you've guessed it, IT STOPPED RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At least the rain was warm though!

Late night visitor and BBQ

We had left the kitchen light on by mistake yesterday evening whilst we were watching TV (although there is in general not much on the box it has to be said) and when we went in to sort the packed lunches we noticed one of our "neighbours" looking in...

Very cute and happy looking chap!
The main event today though was the arrival of the last couple of items we needed to maximise the space we have:

And the Oz essential:

Tomorrow paperwork day - got to sort out all the details for the insurance claim!

Larry the Lobster lands..

Another busy day sorting the last couple of major items for the house - but more of that tomorrow.
Todays undoubted main highlight was the long awaited arrival of

Larry the Lobster from Auntie Jo.
As you can see it went down very well with everyone..

Thankyou Auntie Jo!


DRAGONFLY UPDATE:
For those of you unable to sleep as you are waiting for the identity of the cracking little dragonfly I posted over the weekend, the wait is over. It is aparently called Graphic Flutterer

The big day

Today was a real tear jerker as all three of the children went to school - Cameron's first day!

It was only Xanthe and Hamish second day as well. It feels very different to be sending Cameron to school rather than the Playbarn.
He was completely unphased by the whole event, and was very keen to get started as were Xanthe and Hamish. I am sure there will be the odd bad day but it is a great relief that they are feeling settled, it will help Tish and I settle down as well.
The rest of the day we spent sorting out driving licenses and car registration  - very simple and quick apart from the hour wait at the MVR; and a land line which was an absolute nightmare and took over 2.5 hours (the big issue was that we don't have a credit history in Oz so they wanted to decline our application!).
More routine things tomorrow!

Lee Point and other bits and bobs

We were woken up this morning at around 0230 by a bit of a storm - having watered the garden it then promptly rained for several hours.

In the morning I took the children up to Lee Point again whilst Tish went to church. This area (Lee Point and Buffalo Creek) is a  superb birding area but has a high rate of car break-ins so caution is the name of the game. At Buffalo Creek there is a secure car park that is open most days from 6am so I will be able to have a proper trip out there at some stage.
Anyway when we had walked along the beach last week we found a couple of "pansy" shells but managed to drop them before we got them back to the car - today we found yet more and kept them safe.

We also saw some spectacular dragonflies along the edge of the scrub / mangrove forest. Most of them did not hang around long enough to get any decent photos but this particular one was very obliging (identification to follow shortly..)

After a short walk we then retired to a shaded lay-by along the road and did a gentle bit of birding from the car. We have stopped here before and had great views of several species of raptor and today was no exception - although they showed up the lack of quality of our camera lens.

Nankeen Kestrel

moulting Whistling Kite

very distant adult White-bellied Sea Eagle
On the way back we found a group of 15 Red-tailed Black Cockatoo (we had only seen one briefly before) and managed to get some great views but very poor photos

They are the two black blobs in the middle.
As is the way though once you see something once you start bumping into it again and again. Today was no exception and having picked up Tish we stopped at the local shopping centre to get the last couple of things we needed before the children go back to school tomorrow and guess what there were two in the trees in the car park.

The pictures don't do their size any justice, they are huge and very impressive birds.

When we got back home there was this small lizard by the front door.

The afternoon was spent, yes you've guessed it, in the pool!  Oh yes and messing around with an old digi camera to see if I can connect it to my scope and improve the birdy shots, and yes I can, just need to replace the camera batteries.

Back to normality tomorrow as school term starts.