On the road again

Rain every day for the past twelve days has brought the highest August rainfall to the coast of NSW and as spring is just around the corner it has brought a long neck tortoise out of hibernation for us to find on our driveway. It is the time to go searching for a mate and lucky that this one is far from the heavy traffic areas as they are prone to become road accident victims as they cross the roads.

Easy pickings

Our hens enjoy scratching around in their enclosure to get their feed of grain each morning, but there is always a bit left for later in the day. This has been seen by a flock of about 2 dozen Red-browed Finches as an easy way to get a feed so they just pop through the chicken wire and get their fill.

They are quite happy to keep feeding until the hens get a bit too close and then they are off to the safety of the nearby bush to wait for the all clear for a return.

The yard is a bit muddy after the almost 3" of rain over the past three days and this has resulted in some of the seeds getting trampled in to be brought to the surface with a bit of scratching around.

 

Acrobatic feeding

A few Black Cockatoos announced their arrival this morning with some screeching and rasping calls, so we were hopeful that they would live up to their reputation as predictors of rain as we are having our driest period in twenty years.

They spent the morning moving through the trees searching for moth larvae in the branches and soon the main sound was branches being ripped open to get to the larva.

I found one in a position for a photo and then it flew to another tree and started to work on getting at the larva.

 The branch was attacked from various positions and it demonstrated its acrobatic ability in achieving the result.

  After a sunny morning we had rain start late this afternoon so the lived up to their reputation as predictors of approaching rain and we are hopeful more is on the way.