The love birds

We’ve had a flock of 35 yellow-tailed black cockatoos around for a week or so. They feed on pine cone seeds and the like, and they are big birds.

They have a loud, distinctive call, ascending and descending, which could be heard as a cry of delight. Hear it on the Birds in Backyards website here.

For some reason, a few decided to alight on the statue of Aphrodite/Venus in the front yard. Hence the title of the post (geddit?).

Sorry that the images are a bit fuzzy but I had to take them through a flyscreen. Plus they move fast!

 

So much for those small parrots in pet shops laughingly called ‘lovebirds’ – I’d rather have these!

A pot of gold in the front yard?

It’s not often you see a rainbow in your own front yard. We were sitting on the front porch appreciating a thunderstorm the other day, and noticed this one as the sun started to break through.

The rainbow connection

Red-necked pademelons live in the forest and come out to feed just there – maybe they are really leprechauns in disguise, guarding their pot of gold.

Miscellaneous moths and mushrooms

Wandering and/or bashing along bush tracks, we often saw life forms of various persuasions.

Moths, for example …

Granny moth (or old lady moth) Dasypodia selenophora, Arthur River, Tasmania

 

Unidentified moth, Arthur River

… and mushrooms. I took most of the following photos in the Tarkine, a cool temperate rainforest. The others were in the heathland near the coast. Both environments were very dry – Tasmania has had record low rainfall lately. A dry rainforest is a sad sight indeed. I won’t attempt to identify them as it’s hard from a photo unless you already know your mushrooms; sometimes you need a microscope to differentiate the spores.

An agaric fungus

A polypore (left)

 

 

 

A bolete fungus (no gills but tubes that open at pores on the underside of the cap)

 

 

Not wombat poo (which is cubic)

 

I can see why people are fascinated by the different forms and colours.

Tasmanian devil trip – some things I missed out on …

… because I was in a different group when they happened, but Betty and Di kindly shared their photos with me. Thanks, you two!

I went with a group spotlighting and petroglyphing with Sebastien, but chose to go looking for fossils and seeing the damage done by the January/February fires instead of my scheduled morning with him. I’d twisted my ankle the previous day and knew that I would not be up to walking much and that a morning in the bus would rest it a bit.

Seb’s group found some little buddies.

Seb with a devil – does it look like Taz? (photo by Betty Jacobs)

Note the ticks on the ears, ever-present on devils …

Juvenile Tasmanian devil; photo Di Bennett

The next generation … more young are born than can cling to the four teats …

Tiny baby devils in the pouch – one for each of four teats; photo by Di Bennett

Outa there … note the pink, hairless ears.

Running back into what some of the early settlers no doubt thought of as hell; photo by Di Bennett

They also caught a southern brown bandicoot; it was the only one for the trip.

Southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus); photo by Betty Jacobs

And some spotted-tailed quolls … I was surprised at how big they are, like large cats.

Adult spotted-tail quoll; photo by Betty Jacobs

Poetry corner

High country weather

Alone we are born
And die alone
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
over snow-mountain shine.

Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.

Arthur River; photo by Betty Jacobs

(James Baxter, NZ poet)