It's pink-and-grey - Galah day !

Pink-and-Grey - Galah Day !

When I was a kid, one day per year at school we had a "Pink-and-Grey" Gala day, where there were fetes and fund raising drives.  These days were affectionately known as "Galah-Day" by the teachers.  We all used to be expected to dress in a colour scheme of pink and grey.  There was absolutely no way known that any self-respecting school boy would wear pink to school - except for that most protected of species - the sons of a couple of the teachers who went to the same school where their parent worked.

It's funny how a simple thing can dredge up memories from decades ago.  In this case, the adab (with apologies to Frank Herbert) was stimulated by a visit from a Galah to one of our bird feeders.    

The Peanut Gallery . . .

I arrived home today to find we had visitors. A Sulphur crested cockatoo was getting stuck into our sunflowers, and about ten Little corellas were chowing down at our bird feeders.  When the realised I was watching them, they all took off in a cacophony of shrieking.  The cockatoo kept going but the corellas circled around and landed on the garage roof, screaming obscenities at me like the ingrates they are !

The peanut gallery indignantly passing judgement 

   

Revised species list for Casa da Ayre

We have had a few recent observations of additional species to our little slice of paradise, Casa da Ayre.  Namely, Tawny frogmouth owls, Indian mynas (sigh), House mice (bigger sigh) and as of this morning, Sulphur crested cockatoos (long drawn-out sigh).  There is a single Sulphur crested cockatoo feeding on our sunflower heads as I write this.

The Indian mynas were a matter of time.  They are well established in the area and I knew they'd drop in for a visit sooner or later.  Interestingly, there seems to be fewer Noisy miners about, so maybe the Indian mynas are here to take advantage of that.

We've had a bit of wet weather lately, and with the neighbours chooks and our feeding the birds sunflower seeds, we knew that rats and mice were inevitable.  They are ubiquitous across the landscape in urban and peri-urban areas, and anyone who claims otherwise should put a rat trap out overnight in their garden as an experiment.  They are like urban foxes - they turn up in the most unexpected places.  The wet weather has forced a couple of mice into our garage & shed, so I have started mitigating the problem.

The Sulphur crested cockatoo visit is problematic.  These are native birds, but can be very destructive to houses and trees if they start frequenting an area too much.  They are getting stuck into the seed heads of our sunflower patch at the moment, but will hopefully move on once the flowering is finished.    
Here is the updated bird-sighting list, new additions in italics.

Birds

Rainbow lorikeets 

Eastern rosellas

Scaley-breasted lorikeets 

King parrots

Crested pigeons (Nesting)

Noisy miners

Welcome swallows (Nesting) 

Spotted turtle doves (Nesting, introduced)

Masked lapwings

Black-backed magpies

Laughing kookaburras
Magpie-larks

Pied currawongs

Grey butcherbirds

Pied butcherbirds

Galahs

Little corellas

Dollarbirds

Silver gulls

Blue-faced honey eaters

Australasian Figbird

Eastern koel

Channel-billed cuckoo (seen flying overhead summer/autumn 2013/14, heard Spring 2014)
Tawny frogmouth owls (heard calling)
Indian mynas
Sulphur crested cockatoos.

That brings the number of species of birds observed to 26.  Adding observations from the other Orders, the all-species list is now 31 as at Tuesday 13th January 2015.  

Amphibians

Striped marsh frogs

Reptiles

Grass skink (Lampropholis delicata)

Mammals

Rattus rattus  (aka Yuckus yuckus!)
Neighbourhood cat (aka feral cat)
House mouse (Mus musculus)

Welcome swallows might have moved on . . .

I have been watching our family of Welcome swallows since the adults began hanging around at the end of September and built their nest in October this year.  They built their nest in our carport and when the five young fledged on 26th October, we thought they'd be gone forever.  To our absolute delight, they have been returning to our carport and roosting either in or next to the nest almost every evening since they fledged.

Over the last week, we only had one swallow roosting in the carport.  I can't say for sure if it is an adult or one of the fledglings, but I suspect it is a fledgling.  For the last three nights, the carport has housed only a car.  I can't help but wonder if our Welcome swallows will be back.  Let's hope.          

Rats are T O U G H !

I have a confession.  I intensely dislike, no that's not quite right.  I actually hate introduced rats and mice around my home.

We have had a bit of an infestation at Casa da Ayre since we moved in - they live in the palm trees in our garden and I've had a bugger of a job getting rid of them because we have dogs and cannot risk poison. Even though the risk of secondary poisoning is very low and treatment with Vitamin K will reverse the toxin of choice, Brodifacoum we still would rather not use poison.  Brodifacoum is the poison used on Australia's most successful eradication campaign, on the world heritage sub-Antarctic territory, Macquarie Island.

Anyway, we had a rat decide to move into our garage.  I'd seen the cheeky big sod about a dozen times over the last month, and it had successfully evaded my every trap.  Until tonight.  With great satisfaction I caught the rat tonight in a trap.  Rolled oats mixed with peanut butter was the successful lure.

To my surprise, I discovered the rat was a tripod.  It only had had three legs - it was missing it's front right leg above the knee.  I had no idea it was so incapacitated, and the times I'd seen it, it was off like a rocket, without any sign of injury or mobility problem.  The injury appeared to be quite old, and perfectly healed.  So either Belmont rats are made of tough stuff indeed, or we have more than one living in our garage . . .  I suspect the latter.  

The battle continues !  

Life and death struggle at Casa da Ayre

Gotcha ! 

A Praying mantis grabs a fly on the wall of Casa da Ayre, and proceeds to devour it head-first.

Guilty pleasures 

I have to laugh - my lovely wife gets a very similar expression on her face when I catch her in the act of gobbling Lindt chocolate ! I love Praying mantises - this one was a young female and I was very happy to have her hanging around for a couple of days.  

Ahhh, Australian magpies . . .

Hey, you look interesting.  Do you have food ? ? ? 

I have a passion for wildlife, especially herpetofauna.  But I also adore Australian magpies.  I just can't help it because of their displays of intelligence.  The local subspecies here in the Hunter valley is the Black-backed magpie, Cacticus tibicen tibicen, so named for obvious reasons.

My passion for this species really began in April 2000, when my father introduced me to the local magpie, we had nicknamed "Pew" after the magpie in Murray Ball's legendary cartoon series, Footrot Flats.  Pew was a real character and immediately recognisable by his droopy right wing.  He used to terrorise any visitors to his territory.  If you were local, you were just fine and completely immune from attack.  But woe-betide any visitor for those couple of weeks when Pew and Mrs Pew had chicks that were about to fledge.

I've never forgotten the shrill screams of terror coming from the public toilet across from our office one fine Spring morning.  Dad and I bolted outside, fearing someone was being assaulted in the toilet block.  Well, actually the lady was being harassed but the crazed monster was a uber-defensive magpie, guarding his territory.  Picture the scene; there was Pew, perched on the gutter of the public amenities block, glaring with such venom into the ladies side of the public toilets that the thirty something woman was immobilized and shrieking with pure terror . . .  Looking back, I still remember the look of pure hatred in the magpie's eyes as Dad and I rescued the woman.  He was going to kill her for certain.  Luckily for Pew, the woman was not physically injured at all, and we were able to persuade her that our magpie was only like that while he had young in the nest.  No complaint was made.  I often wonder how close the old fella came that day to getting a dangerous bird complaint made against him.

Anyway, I crossed paths with another pair of magpies on Sunday that made me laugh.  They were watching me, so I laid flat on the ground and pretended to dig in the lawn.  Incredibly curious, the magpies came right up to me for a closer look.  A much closer look . . .    

Angry Birds?  Nope, just a curious magpie.   

They came really close to me to see what this weird human was doing.   

What ARE you doing down there you strange human? 

Coast is clear.  He's just plumb crazy . . . and then they left me to chase a passing Australian raven out of their territory.