Raindrops Are Falling On My .............................

The weather lately has been typical spring, with the temperatures climbing to the mid 30's, then the southerly changes comming through & cooling us down. Sometimes we would wake up to misty rain, only to find the clouds clearing later in the day & the temperature starts to climb again. The pic today is another of my "Jennifer" rose, this time taken in the misty rain.

Dew Drops

Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me. This pic is just another one of those special moments that we come across & realize just how special this world is, if only we just take the time to stop & take notice. This is an early morning shot of my strawberry plants. So what you all ask? Well, on close inspection, the little dew drops are visible on every peak on the leaves. So my question is this, why do they accumulate on the points? Why do the drops not run down the leaf, or accumulate somewhere else? Only Mother Nature would know the answer.

Rose Weevil?

Check out this bug that I found crawling all over my lovely pink roses. Friend or foe I had to ask myself. So I did some research & came upon this site, which describes the weevil as 5-6mm in length. My beetle is more like 1.5 cm in lenght, but it looks just like all the pics I have seen of adult rose weevils. It appears this little creature is a foe to my flowers. I always wondered what caused the little holes in my rose buds, now I know, & will have to take action.

Old Friends & New

These magpies have been nesting in our area for years. When we first moved into our house, they used to nest in the park (pictured) just down the road, then one year they nested in the gum tree in my neighbours yard. They nested here for a number of years until the crows came & took over the nest a few seasons ago. Now they have nested in a large gum tree in a property adjoining the park, just out of camera range to the left.

We have got to know these magpies very well over the years. One year we watched over their babies as they learnt to fly. They had fallen from the nest & landed in our yard, so to protect them from cats, we bundled them up in a box with a wire top, patially covered with old towels, & put them on top of our carport roof. They would be in this box of a night, and during the day they had the run of our yard, with their mum & dad flying in to feed them. The babies became very tame, and my sons used to pick them up & let them fly down to the ground. It only took a few days and they were strong enough to fly high enough to get away from any predators.

So now every year they come back to say hello & introduce us to the next generation. Below is a baby from this year, not sure if he is watching me with the camera, or himself in the mirror in my neighbours garage.

Magpies have a reputation of swooping & attacking humans if they come anywhere near their nest. As you can see, their beaks are quite large & can cause some serious damage. Personally, I have found that if we are aggressive to them, they will be aggressive back. These particular magpies know that we will not hurt them, & quite often come looking for food.

Christmas Is Comming

The weather in Sydney over the last few days has been nothing but dismal. Cold, wet & windy, it has been more winter than spring. I believe it even snowed in the Blue Mountains which means it was really cold here. The up side of all this is the rain we have had, 17mm, or well over half an inch in the old scale. My garden is singing again.

The pic this morning is of my NSW Christmas Bush which is in bud. Just a reminder that Christmas is around the corner with hopefully warmer weather to come.

Eggs to What?

These eggs were found on a leaf of my lemon tree. I figure they are the eggs of some pest of some kind so they have been removed. I tried to do a search to find out what they might be the eggs of, & could only find the "bronzed orange bug" or "stink bug". In the pics I found, the eggs were green, not brown like these, and somewhere I read that they always lay 14 eggs, which I find hard to believe. There is also something called the "Horned Citrus Bug" which also is a pest. Anyway, whatever these eggs are the babies of, they are no longer on my tree and can do no more damgage to it.

More Daisies

Some pics of another daisy in my garden this morning. This one came from a packet of seeds labelled "cottage garden" that I threw over the garden some years ago. I think it is a "Cut Leaf Daisy", as it always has flowers. These flowers start off pink, then go white as they open out. They are only tiny flowers, and sometimes I pick some of them to add as fillers to a small vase of cut flowers for inside. It is also another hardy plant as it has survived the drought of the last few years.

Shasta Daisies

Signs of summer are arriving in my garden, even though summer is still officially about six weeks away. This is one of the buds that has appeared on one my shasta daisies. These dasies originally came from my Mum's garden, and have multiplied over the years. They were all across the front garden at one point, but with the drought and water restrictions , I have lost quite a lot of them. Over the last year we have had a little more rain than the previous few years, and the dasies are starting to spread again. I have about 4 little pockets of them scattered throughout the garden, and may be able to transplant some cuttings to make them spread faster, once they finish flowering. I look forward to seeing the butterflies they attract when they are in flower.

Channel-Billed Cuckoo

Yesterday I noticed a different bird in the gum trees in my neighbour's yard. There were two of them actually & they were so noisy. I recognised their call as the one which I sometimes hear at night. Over the last few weeks I have started to hear them again & I was really happy to finally see who or what has been to blame for all the noise.

I was not quick enough with the camera to catch a pic, so this one is from Waratah Software, and pictures the channel-billed cuckoo with a kurrawong.

I have also learnt this morning that this bird migrates to Northern & Eastern Australia from New Guinea & Indonesia each spring, & goes back in late summer & early autumn. Their calls can be heard here, just scroll down to the second on the list & click on the sound file. Oh joy, I have six monts of listening to these calls at all hours of both day & night. The kurrawong song I can handle any time.

Colour Differences

This is another gazinia flower from my garden. Note the colour differences to the last one. In this one the stripes are more defined because of the lighter coloured petals. There is also much more yellow in this one, and I just love the yellow spots at the base of the petals. Obviously this plant has been a product of the bees playing in my garden & has come from one of the seeds.