Art controversy...

Xanthe is going to drawing classes this term in Cairns Gallery. This we thought would be a nice uncontroversial relaxing after school activity but it has proved not to be!
Now I know that one mans art is another mans graffiti and that I am biased but personally I think this picture by Xanthe is pretty good

Her art teacher on the other hand disagrees and told Xanthe that she "hated" it.
Now I don't think there is any excuse for saying that to an eleven year old even if you don't like the picture - it is certainly better than anything I could produce!
We gave it to Jen for her birthday and she and Alan both seemed quite pleased with it...

I'm looking at you...

Do you ever get that feeling that you are being watched, we do.......

Cute though this little chap is (about three inches long) there are down sides - he is deceptively noisy and has a tendancy to leave little "packages" around the room and is not a native to Australia. That said he is good at eating those pesky bugs!

Party time

Today was Jens 60th birthday party and we were delighted to be invited by Alan and Jen to join their family and a few of their oldest friends for a BBQ at Lake Tinaroo.

Not a bad place for a party.
In true Funnell style or children wormed their way into the pictures - being dragged in by Alan in reality!

Of course when I'm around there is always some wildlife... these Pied Currawongs kept flying low over the house but never when I had the camera handy

Midweek update

Another week slips away, where does the time go to at the moment?
It has been rather busy as is usually the case with three small children! The main event this week (so far) has been that Tish had to have a minor operation on Tuesday. It was scheduled for later in the week but due to a change in circumstances they bought the op forward and so yesterday she went into Cairns Day Surgery Unit and had a salivary gland in her mouth unblocked. I picked her up early afternoon and apart from being a tad woozy from the anaesthetic there have been no after effects and she is sore but fine - have to say that did wonder if an operation on her mouth would reduce the spoken word but no....
Whilst waiting for her to come out I wandered around a few places.
Collared Kingfishers are a large spectacular looking bird that I usually only see disappearing around the corner of some mangrove lined creek but yesterday was the exception as these two showed very well

The most unexpected find of the day though was unfortunately dead but was still impressive and photogenic

This Reticulate Whipray was washed up along the Esplanade.

Often in photos getting the scale of the beastie in a picture can be very hard, particularly for insects. One of the most spectacular butterflies that we have in the garden on a regular basis is the cairns Birdwing - they will have appeared on the blog numerous times (usually out of focus and with size hard to judge) well at home over the weekend we had the opportunity to get a better picture with something in the same shot to give it context...

When is a dragon not a dragon?

No post yesterday as I was rushed off my feet at the Cairns Show - well not really if I am honest. I did spend three hours collecting tickets at one of the four entrance gates with Hamish's Cub Pack getting paid for my time. The show is just a fair by another name with a few animals thrown in. By far the best part was the Cairns Regional Council stage where a variety of cultural performers were, well performing. When I left to start my shift Tish was watching Torres Strait Islanders performing traditional dances.
My three hours passed uneventfully and rather slowly, Tish collected me after she had picked up the children.
I should just mention that Tish has joined a local gym in a concerted effort to get fit - the end result from her first visit was a distinct lack of mobility as muscles that she had forgotten she owned made their prescence felt big time!
Today she has returned prior to her shift so when she gets in this evening we shall see how mobile or otherwise she is!
I spent the day checking out another couple of sites that we could potentially use on our tours. The second site was a dead loss, we saw virtually nothing. The first site was brilliant but the access is poor and I suspect that we will only use it as a last resort.
The birds were jumpy and the light was not that good so I got very few pictures. This Red-winged Parrot though was the exception as it showed really well before the clouds and rain came across

I know its cruel to say it but these birds always come across as being intellectually challenged! Most Parrots are clearly very smart birds but this one really does not act like the smartest cookie in the barrel!
The stars of the day though were two little lizards that we found - they are "Dragons" but their name is Tommy Round-head and they are really cute!
These are adults and they are barely four inches long, the majority of which is taken up with the tail!

The last of the 12..

Before I get on to the subject of todays little posting just to clarify something from the Sunbird post - the nest is not complete yet, when finished it forms a hanging basket and she sits inside peeping out.
Anyway moving on...
Today was a timing run for part of our Southern Tablelands tour aimed at getting as many of the twelve Wet Tropic Endemic birds as possible. We headed off to Mount Hypipamee today, I left early as I had to make sure I was back in time for the children. I am not sure what is going on with the weather this winter but having had a dry wet season we are now having a wet winter - and it was certainly wet today. Most unpleasant.
Our main target bird wise today was Golden Bowerbird - the last of the endemics that I had not seen. Hypipamee is relatively speaking quite high altitude and as such is considerably colder as we had found out to our cost when we visited in late April - this time we were prepared long trousers, jumper and waterproof coat were the order of the day.
Our information was that the place to look was on the forest edge along the entrance track but despite much searching we could not find the active bower. I suspect that in another few weeks when the male is more territorial we will be able to locate it. I had been joking with Tony that as we had not seen Cassowary when we did our recce last week that we would probably be tripping over them today as they do occur in these forests. Much to our surprise my prediction turned out to be completely accurate as we saw not one but two adult Cassowary at very close range, the second individual we almost literally tripped over him as we nipped into the forest no more than ten metres from the track to find ourselves nose to beak with a rather startled male! Needless to say we retreated in an orderly manner and having put a nice tree between us and him settled back to enjoy prolonged views of him. He was completely unconcerned and after a while we backed out and left him in peace, only to find him following us down the track five minutes later. He decided to make up for his good temper the first time and started to get a little bit feisty with us so we retreated further until he disappeared back into the forest.
Unfortunately I only had my camera phone so the images are not up to my normal standard..

My phone does take video but in my haste to get out of his way I managed to miss this opportunity to get some footage - oh well next time!
The rain did eventually ease up for about 30 minutes which was enough to get three species of Bowerbird actively feeding - Spotted Catbird (yes I know its called a Catbird but it is a Bowerbird); Tooth-billed Bowerbird and the target for today two female types and a male Golden Bowerbird
The yellow blob in the middle is a Bowerbird not a soft toy

Having got our main target we moved on to a couple more sights including Hasties Swamp which was alive with ducks

The majority were Plumed and Wandering Whistling-Ducks and Magpie Geese.
Mixed in were at least 80 Pink-eared Ducks

These attractive little ducks are very nomadic and rarely reach this part of Queensland in any number so it was great to see them. Mixed in with the the commoner species was also a single Freckled Duck - this is one of Australia's rarest ducks and this individual (which has been around for several weeks) is I think the first one to be recorded in North Queensland. It was unfortunately far too distant for me to get any pictures of it!
Tomorrow I am a steward at the Cairns Show - raising funds for Hamish's Cub Pack, should be interesting!

Stunning Sunbirds..

Over the last few days our female Olive-backed Sunbird has returned and has been working on her nest with renewed vigour soon Saturday I decided to spend some time trying to get a few better pictures

I took close to 350 images but as you can see the nest site is partially undercover so the light was not always good meaning that half the shots are not sharp.
With some editing I managed to get a few decent pics
Getting her on the nest was not too bad - although she would spend most of her time on the otherside of the nest to me so I have many pictures of just the tip of her tail.

I clearly got too close on one occasion as she stuck her tongue out...

She did this regularly, I suspect to get rid of the spiders webs that she was using to bind the vegetation together.
Shots of her in flight we far harder as her wings beat incredibly fast

I tried to get a few shots as she flew in but this proved to be virtually impossible, this is my sole partial success

I did get a couple of semi decent shots as she flew off, although the nest was often in the way

There were a few other distractions as well...

such as this Sacred Kingfisher trying to use the childrens trampoline!

It will be interesting over the next few weeks to see if she continues with her efforts!