Ugh! Missed my regular Monday post arguing with Hugin and the Gimp over a layered exposure image. Slept on it and achieved better results in half an hour Tuesday morning than I had in half a day yesterday:
The weekend was as usual busy. A few highlights included another sighting of a Double-barred finch in one of the wattles, a brief glimpse of what looked like another Common Egg-fly butterfly down by the blackberry we were burning off, and discovering two juvenile Blue-tongue lizards hanging around in the badly over-grown front garden.
A less than successful foray into the Blue-faced Parrot finch aviary for better photos – not only will they not keep still, they like to hide in shadows.
Geronimo, one of my tame hand-reared Gouldians is quite clingy at the moment, and kept flying to my arm or shoulder wanting to come out of the aviary and explore the service-way and holding cages behind the aviaries. She likes to check out the other Gouldian aviary, and the Blue-faced Parrot finch aviary for a few hours, before coming back inside to overnight in a holding cage away from the cold and rain that moved in early Sunday morning.
The baby Gouldians I’m currently hand rearing are doing well. Flick is now fully feathered and in a holding cage learning (from Geronimo) what seed is all about. He/she also spends a few hours a day when the weather is fine out in the more sheltered of the Gouldian aviaries. The new youngster is feeding well fit to burst, but will be staying in the brooder box for a while yet.
Saturday afternoon we burned another two patches of blackberry. One particularly difficult clump growing on a steep slope I thought would prove very difficult and uncooperative, but actually burnt better, eventually, than the smaller clump on the flat. Both clumps had leaders sneaking out a long way trying to spread – hiding in the grass and up to 4 or 5 meters long. Little wonder blackberry frequently escapes eradication attempts.
Sunday the rain started again. It came in with a cold southern air mass. Our deciduous fruit and flowering trees are starting to change colours and lose their leaves. Winter is on it’s way.
