Back on-line after a brief 2 hour outage for updates and maintenance. Big layout changes still underway, but everything should be available again in one form or another. There’s a lot of site optimisation that needs to be done (a never-ending-story) and a lot of content backing up waiting for these updates to be completed. More later … need to go feed the lorikeet chick (the cold snap nearly got it).
Category Archives: General
Just general stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere specific …
Working on a new theme
Working on a new WordPress theme using the Genesis framework. Hopefully some changes coming to this site before too long. Experimenting with HTML5 and some CSS3 as well. Exciting stuff!
More exciting news – our Varied Lorikeets, Stanley and Dee, have started hatching chicks! They picked a lousy time of year – the weather is turning cold. One of the first two chicks died within a day, but the older chick seems to be thriving so far. Both adults are doting parents, but the weather is cruel.
I’m watching at least 8 Citrus Swallowtail caterpillars as they grow. The lime trees seem to be the favorite this year. Hopefully they will get big enough to survive before winter sets in.
Birds, blackberries and more
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.