MAY 2011 – LOTS OF COLD AND WINTRY DAYS

The month began with a very exciting visitor!
When Geoff picked me up from the train after a trip to Melbourne on Friday, 6th May, he said: “We have a new bird.” He showed me a couple of photos he’d managed to take through the lounge room window and I was VERY excited. Here he is:

It didn’t take long to identify him from the bird-books – he’s a Buff Banded Rail, very beautiful and, although reasonably common around most of Australia, very shy and not often seen. What is so very pleasing is that we’ve now seen him almost every day since that first sighting. He appears morning and evening for a bath in the (very small) bird-bath and then disappears into the undergrowth. We’re not quite sure whether we have one or two and, until we seen them together (if there are two) just won’t know. There are definitely two personalities: one is very relaxed and stands around preening for about ten minutes after his bath and the other scuttles off very quickly as soon as he/she is finished.

Here’s a four minute video taken from a total of about 12 ½ minutes.

Mushrooms
May is usually the time when we pick heaps of mushrooms in our paddock but this year they’ve been very scarce. Lots of moisture for them but just not enough warm sunshine. We gave away a total of about one bucket full and have only had about three meals. I think the time has passed now and we won’t see any more till next year.



The mushrooms are few and far between - and hardly any big ones.

Different year – a different season. I had a look at my photos and blog entry for May 2010 and discovered that most of the Australian shrubs were already flowering by now. This year, although buds are forming and there are a few flowers, they will be much later than last May.

Fruit and vegies.
The asparagus has been cut down and its roots put to bed for the winter. A generous dressing of pony-poo, a few handfuls of chook fertiliser and, when I get it, a blanket of pea-straw should keep them warm and well-fed ready for new, juicy shoots in the spring.

Silver Beet’s a staple in my garden and even if the snails and bugs attack it, there’s always enough for a meal. It’s delicious, nourishing and grows without much effort from me.
The fruit trees – Apricot, Nectarine and Plum – are only young and haven’t produced any fruit yet. Now that they almost finished shedding their leaves, I’ll prune them soon and hope that next season they’ll do the right thing.

What’s happening to my Silver Princess?!!!
That was my cry when I noticed quite a number of dead leaves and branches hanging down amongst the healthy ones. The weather has been so cold and wet that I wasn’t doing my usual wander around the garden every day. Normally, I regularly spend an odd fifteen minutes or so in the garden just for enjoyment, as well as keeping an eye on how things are growing. Sadly, proper examination of the tree (E. caesia) revealed a bad infestation of scale. And I mean BAD!

Every branch I looked at had a thick covering of the rotten little animals and each leaf was being attacked as well. Some of the branches would have to be radically pruned and the rest thoroughly sprayed – probably for a couple of weeks, if the tree is to be saved.

I found some EcoPest oil at the local garden shop and armed with that and a new supply of Pyrethrum with Garlic, I began my assault on the tree. Oh dear! The more I cut off the more and more I found badly infested. After consultation with husband, Geoff, we decided that most of the main trunk – which was leaning at quite an acute angle – would have to go and we’d try to save the smaller branches that had grown up vertically from it. Here’s what it looks like now.

It has certainly been cut back within an inch of its life but I’m afraid there was no alternative. There was no other way of stopping the spread of such a virulent attack.
The rest has now been heavily sprayed and I’ll do it again next week. Fingers and eyes are all crossed, hoping it will survive.

Update on birds
After we’d been attacking the Silver Princess, we discovered that the Buff Banded Rail seems to be hiding under the Hakea – right next door to the tree where Geoff was using the chain-saw. We haven’t seen a nest and don’t want to disturb it, but that’s where he disappears to after his bath. We were a bit concerned that we might have frightened him but the next day he was out again at the bird-bath looking very relaxed. He’s even started to get a bit pushy; he jumped out of the bath and attacked a couple of Goldfinches which were getting too close for his comfort, so we feel he’s becoming very much at home.
A small flock of Silvereyes appeared in the garden in the last week of May and I found a couple of them going all over the Indigofera Australis, picking off any small bug or caterpillar that was attacking it. We could have done with about a thousand more of them to rescue the Silver Princess!
A baby Fantail has been introduced to the bird-bath by its parents; a family of New Holland Honeyeaters - parents and noisy children – come and go regularly; and we still have the Shrike Thrush hopping about and serenading us. We also hear and occasionally see, a Golden Whistler – only the female though. We’ve only ever seen the male once in the last seven years.

STOP PRESS ON THE RAIL
The first day of June – and as I was about to put the Blog up on the internet, I found our Rail up on the veranda. He walked right around the house and then appeared fossicking around in the garden outside my office. Definitely feeling much more at home. AND, almost certainly a different bird from the one which is so nervous and runs away after bathing. Do we have a pair? We’re very hopeful.

For more photos of the Rail and the garden in general, you can click here.