No title birds

Silly, silly me.  I posted this without any title or words.

Along the creek

It's very dry along the park at the back of my brother's house here on the south side of Brisbane.  There's not much watee in the creek but the ducks and swamp hens are enjoying what's there.

Mellow days

I mustn't spoil my appreciation of this lovely weather by acknowledging that it won't last much longer.  I must not.

Despite summer being a bit of a fizzer it is lingering.  There's a nice chill to the air morning and evening but the days .... oh, the days are sublime. 

In the late afternoons the air is as soft and fresh as my son's new grass.  

The ducks appreciate that grass too.

The days are warm enough for the cattle to seek out the shade of trees. 

This steer seems as mellow as I feel.

The cure is a walk

I wasn't feeling myself this afternoon.  No, I wasn’t feeling anyone else either!

Let’s start again.  This afternoon, driving home from work, I had a vague feeling of physical unease.   Nothing wrong really, just felt uneasy with myself and knew I needed a long, relaxing walk. 

As “just an administrator” I want the days of stressful jobs to be behind me.  But you know what they say about the best laid plans…..yeah, well, it’s like that!  I’m trying hard not to stress about my current project but not winning that battle.  That inner thing that drives me to want to do my best is at odds with my intentions. 

I think I’m lucky that some inner part of me always knows what I need.  And this afternoon I knew I needed that walk.

Georgia was happy to accompany me and suggested she ride her bike.  She’s not as easy to keep up with when she’s riding and I’m walking but I was happy to walk a bit faster when I had the sight of her to lift my spirits.  She’s not a confident bike rider just yet so her chat was amusing.  Every time the dogs came near her she warned them away saying it wouldn’t be her fault if she ran over them.

Coming to a downhill section of the track, which then went steeply uphill, I tried to explain about going fast downhill, then starting to pedal for the momentum to carry her up the next hill.  

She looked so little compared with that hill but she gave it her best shot.  Doesn’t the body language tell the story?

Further along the track we startled a pair of ducks and she informed me they were going back to my house – they are the ones with their nest in the paddock beside my house.  How does she know that?  She very confidently tells me that the mother duck has a patch of white that other mother ducks don’t have – it’s a birthmark!!  Should I debate the point and tell her I don’t think ducks have birthmarks?  No way!

Just past this point she gets off her bike and starts kicking the ground beside the track.  We can smell something dead and she’s looking for it.  She’s thinking out loud:  No, I don’t think it is here.  It’s a big smell so it’s probably something big.  So big we will see if without looking.  I know what it is.  

And away she goes leading me to the big bad smell.  Then tells me the story of how and why the cow died. 

I love how kids just absorb knowledge…(even if they apply that knowledge a little haphazardly as with the birthmark.)

We came to our usual destination along the creek and, to my surpise, passed quickly by.

We were nearly home, all thoughts of work stress and magpie attacks long gone, when the black and white dive bombing machine struck.  Well, nearly struck.  No warning.  I suddenly heard the swish of its wings and at the same moment felt the hair on the top of my head move.   Very scarey!  No wonder the girls shriek so much when they are attacked!

I suspect I was attacked as I was the tallest thing beside the person riding the bike (as it’s never worried about me before).  I’d really love to find some literature that explains why magpies hate people riding bikes so much!

Anyway, I’d had a lovely walk and felt so much better.  

(And wouldn’t you just love to wander through graveyard and read “died from magpie attack”!) 

Ducks or geese?

About a week ago, heading to work in heavy rain, flashes of white caught my eye at the little causeway. Ducks, I thought. Really? Ducks? Domestic ducks? Surely not. I haven't seen any white ducks down this road before. The causeway is just past the swampy area where pukeko (our native swamp hen) and peacocks hang out, so could make an ideal duck hang out.

I've seen them nearly every morning since but they were not close enough for me to make out whether they are ducks or geese - and I wanted to know! They are never there when I return from work.

Until this afternoon! It was raining and I took the photo out of the car window and still got a wet arm. A couple of pukeko are in the background.

See, they're domestic ducks, aren't they? They're a long way from their home if they are. There are no houses nearby but maybe domestic ducks range over a large area - I wouldn't have a clue.

These two are wild ducks (the same as in my shoot out photo) that have more or less taken up residence beside this puddle in the paddock next to my house. Nice neighbours!