Frogs

We went round to Allan and Jens for a BBQ over the weekend - they were going to come round to us but Jen was manning the Wildlife Rescue phoneline so we took the BBQ to them.
In between eating, having a couple of glasses of wine and in Jens case answering the phone I wandered around the garden and found three native frog species

Dainty Tree Frog

this adult male is only 35mm long - about 1 1/3 inches in old money


Ornate Burrowing Frog

about 45mm long

White-lipped Tree Frog

a big brute of a frog!

Pumpdate..

Very poor pun but there you go what do you expect on a Sunday morning. Received an email yesterday saying that my new drain pump will arrive on Tuesday - hopefully with the correct attachments as they have been reminded several times what machine it needs to go into!
The main highlight of the week was Tish's party out fit - she went to a Hawaiian themed pool party Thursday

On the Friday I took Tish into town so she could go to the gym, I spent the time on the Esplanade. As the spring progresses migrant waders are flooding in to escape the northern hemisphere winter so there was heaps to se and photograph - although I spent most of my time looking at two resident species.
Gull-billed Tern

and Striated Heron (have only gone through a few of these there are still another 70 shots to look at)

Tish is on four nights this week so I will try and get back down to the Esplanade if the tide is right and get some more piccies

Pumps, fruit and toads...

It has been a rather busy few days in the Funnell household. The long running saga of our washing machine continues on.....

this is the offending piece - the water drain pump; I have found a replacement one and am now waiting for it to be delivered sometime next week - until then I am trotting next door and using Allan and Jens machine!
As the season changes from spring to summer we are starting to get the first of the local windfall

these Mangos will be perfect after a couple of days rippening in the sun.
Continuing the food theme my attempt at Toad in the Hole last night

I really must practise my batter mix...

On a serious note our thoughts go out to friends in NSW who are caught up in what is rapidly becoming one of the worst fires since the 50s - lets hope the weather is not as bad as is forecast and some control can be bought to the situation - but with one fire alone burning along a 300km front it could be a long hard battle.

And I'm back..

apologies for the lack of blogs for a while but we have all been rather busy. The school holidays have finished and so last week was manic as it was the first week back and to be honest the children are always a bit grumpy - they can't wait to get back to school to see friends (and get away from Daddy!) but then the novelty wears off and they are grumpy.
Anyway a couple of after school trips to the lagoon and we are all back on an even keel again.
Tish has been very busy at work and has had a run of night shifts which has meant that we have not actually done too much as she has been catching up on sleep.
That said on Sunday we visited

the visitor centre at Cairns Botanic Gardens as Xanthe had a piece of art work displayed there

She attended a workshop over the school holidays where they made insects and all the work was then displayed in the centre

very good Xanthe!!

I have been busy the last few days which has been great - although the temperatures yesterday on the Tablelands were a sweltering 46.5 degrees which made birding rather uncomfortable.
Even some of the local wildlife seemed to be struggling in the heat

This Emu chick was panting the whole time as it ran to keep up with Dad!

Will try and post again this week but no promises!

Oops a week gone and no blog...

Time flies during the school hols - well it does sometimes and at others it don't go fast enough!!!!
Anyway enough of that, what have we been doing since I last posted.
In the immortal words of Flanders and Swann  "busily doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do...."
The weather is warming up now, the nights are 18-20 degrees which is still quite pleasant, but the humidity has been creeping up, on some days over 85%. As the weather has warmed up we have returned to our routine of swimming in the Lagoon along the Esplanade; the children love it and it is a nice easy afternoon for the adults as well - although wimpy me is still finding the water a tad cold...
In between the swimming we have been visiting a selection of play parks...

and whilst Mum has been in the Gym we have gone for walks along the Esplanade

with occasional stops at various play parks, sculptures...

....and exercise stations

This is the best of both worlds as the children get to play and enjoy the walk and I can get some birding done at the same time.
Today I managed to miss two successful fishing runs from the local Osprey

but I did get a few decent pictures of the local Varied Honeyeaters

Tomorrow I do battle with a tent that we have been given to see if we can work out how to get it up - two hours today resulted in nothing......