Baby butcher bird appears

In the past I've kind of dreaded late September, into October as the butcher birds who've nested in the big tree at the front of our place have 'terrorised' me by swooping very close to my head whenever I've taken a wander outside the door.  Being away out from home for the last 6 weeks has meant I've missed that dreaded swooping business that seems to last for ages - at least until the babies 'fly the coop'!

Yesterday I was repotting some hanging baskets just outside the front door of our house and heard a twittering, tweeting commotion quite close.  Our neighbour's garage backs on to our boundary line and has a flat roof - Mama (or Papa) butcher bird had brought baby on to the flat surface and they were perched right on the edge, baby getting his fill of tidbit.  Parent flew off again for a refill and baby remained sitting very close to the edge.   I popped indoors to get my camera and shot one of it but there was a twig in the way.  I continued with my repotting expecting parent to be back soon but when I looked up again, baby had flown - right on to a branch of a gum tree which grows quite close.  I think it might be time for baby to be out of the nest and on it's own as it flew off quite soon after that. I was surprised to see it flying very proficiently. 

I love this time of the year - so many lovely birds in our back yard including the family of Noisy Miners who come daily now for their feed of bread.  Since I've been away though, my two favourite little green parrots have disappeared so I'll be keeping watch for them in case they arrive back. They could be nesting and staying close to 'home'.  A couple of rainbow lorikeets must have stuck around as they appear each morning quite early waiting for their handout.

No doubt the amount of rain that Sydney has had over these past few months has meant that lots of flowering natives have an abundance of blooms at present and the local birds just love it.  In that respect, I'm pleased they are not needing to call in to my back door for a top up.  It is much nicer that they are feeding as nature intended.

Blessings!

IPSWICH

The beautiful countryside passed by quickly and after a couple of hours we arrived in Henley, a hamlet just outside Ipswich, West Suffolk, at the home of our second cousins. It was lovely to see them again after nearly 20 years. We were quickly given lunch and headed off to spend a litte time at the Abbey of St Edmund ruins at Bury.

Abbey Ruins

Abbey Gardens

About a half hours drive from Henley, the market town of St Edmundsbury had a village atmosphere with the cathedral just outside a large shopping centre. The cathedral was once among the richest Benedictine monasteries in England. The cathedral is surrounded by the Abbey Gardens where the gardens were a vivid mass of colour. While meandering through the park-like gardens, a squirrel caught our eye climbing down a tree trunk quite close to the ground. We stopped to photograph it and it hopped down to the path and sat quite close to Fiona (cousin’s daughter) who had come with us. It was quite tame and fascinating to us as we don’t have them living in the southern hemisphere. Inside the cathedral we were able to see the beautiful ceiling of the new spire. The addition commenced in 2000, and has only recently been completed. Our day finished with a lovely meal and an evening spent with the family catching up with family news.

Next morning after breakfast we headed off to the university town of Cambridge which was north west about 71 kilometres (44 miles)from Ipswich. With little parking available in the township, large ‘park and ride’ areas are available for all day parking on the outskirts. We rode into town on a double decker bus taking in all the sights en route.

Views of Cambridge

This ancient town of colleges, museums, market street stalls, provides contrasting historic buildings with modern shopping venues. The town was crowded, with an obvious predominance of students and bicycles as well as large tourist coaches, visitors spilling out all along Kings Parade. As with many of these historic places, tour company employees bustled amongst the crowds touting their own special tours as being ‘the best’ or ‘the cheapest’. We were happy to continue our way through the narrow streets - we had an excellent guide showing us the magnificent buildings. Trinity and Kings Colleges, the Fitzwilliam Museum, ancient houses all had their appeal, and a wander along the River Cam was also a highlight with the beautiful cherry trees blooming right alongside.

We stopped for lunch at a little ’church’ café tucked along from the museum, where organic food was served at very reasonable rates. A short meal stop was an ideal way in which to rest our weary feet. We were soon ready to move on again and browsed the market stalls before heading for the ’park and ride’ again to pick up the car and head back to Henley.

A quick change and we were ready to be taken out for a delicious meal at an Ipswich Italian restaurant. We were helping Margaret and Magnus with their family, celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. What a lovely occasion to be sharing with them. We did enjoy the evening. Our time with these lovely people was all too short - in the morning we had another fairly early start to the coach station. Only one more day in England before we left to fly to Texas to meet with our son, daughter in law and two grandchildren.

We were ready to meet the coach when it arrived and we boarded and commenced our journey from Ipswich to Heathrow Airport. It was a miserable day so we were pleased we weren’t on a sight-seeing mission. After one stop half way to change coaches, we arrived at Heathrow about 1.30pm. We had booked a hotel room as we had a very early flight check in. This would ensure an early night and a short distance to the airport tomorrow.

ABERDEEN

On the way to Balmoral

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny which was rather nice for our drive to Balmoral castle a couple of hours away. We were still ‘rugged up’ though despite the warmth in the lovely car. The scenery once we were away from the Aberdeen township was just as I imagined it to be. Small villages, mainly grey granite houses with people bustling about their everyday lives. Passing miles of fields we were rather fascinated by the number of mole holes with farmers apparently trying to get rid of the offending animals. We don’t have moles in our part of the world so this was something quite new for us. Tiny stone cottages dotted the countryside along the way with forest trees lining both sides of the roadway for much of the way. Close to Balmoral we caught glimpses of mountains still with the snowline quite low. Apparently the week before our arrival, Aberdeen and its surroundings had suffered quite a nasty blizzard.

DH and our Scottish host at the bridge

The entrance to the castle was across a bridge over the River Dee and down a short walk to the gates all hidden from the main road. A quick ride behind a tractor brought us up to the back part of the castle where we were let out to roam in the various display rooms. Examples of birds and animals were on show as well as carriages which had been used in bygone days by the royal family. Inside one area of the castle itself was a large room where many items were displayed including different dresses the Queen had worn on many important occasions, china, photographs, all manner of memorabilia which was most interesting.

DH and I outside the main Castle gates

Balmoral Castle

A small amount of snow lay on the ground and DH took great delight in rolling himself a small snowball and throwing it at me. It missed, but I caught it on camera - for posterity’s sake of course, you understand! We roamed around the gift shop and had a beautiful lunch in the little café. The drive back to Aberdeen seemed quicker - doesn’t it always on the return journey? We had time though to change and have a refreshing ‘cuppa’ before heading out to a lovely Chinese restaurant for an early dinner before we attended the stage show “Sound of Music”. Talk about being treated like royalty! We certainly were - we were so grateful to our new friends for their generosity!

Our time in Aberdeen seemed so short and the next morning we were away again towards the airport by 7.15am to fly back to London where we were being met by more friends. How fortunate are we?

CANTERBURY AND CHARTWELL

Bluebells at Winston Churchill's home "Chartwell"

At least Easter Monday was dry - but the wind was still very chilly. We set off to drive to Canterbury - a drive of a couple of hours. The English countryside is magnificent - green and lush with Spring daffodils, primrose, crocus, jonquils, anenomes and ranuculi brilliant splashes of colour as we drove through both tiny, narrow lanes and huge, wide motorways.

The Old Weavers House A.D.1500

Canterbury is no less historic than so much of the United Kingdom. Buildings in the main street dating back to 1500 and still at least from the outside, looked in quite good condition. Painted boards outside the different establishments were fascinating. The Cricketers and The Old Weavers House A.D.1500, only two which took my eye. We had visited Canterbury a number of years ago and had seen inside the cathedral so our first stop was for lunch - a modern little Italian restaurant - quite a contrast in architecture right outside the cathedral entrance. Leading to the cathedral gate, a small circular courtyard was surrounded by old looking shops with ‘busker’s’ performing beside a fenced off monument in the centre.

Busker outside Canterbury Cathedral

We wandered through the main street, battling against the bitterly cold wind and back to the car. On our way again to “Chartwell” the home of Winston Churchill, so famous during the second World War. Unfortunately it was too early in the season for much of the garden (which the home is quite famous for) to be out in bloom but the flowering bulbs were an absolute ‘show’. Loved the vibrant bluebells and particularly the Lenten Rose which I had never seen before but grows from a tuber and blooms during the period of Lent.

Lenten Rose

"Chartwell"

Churchill was a prolific painter and his studio has been preserved as a gallery for the public to view. Interesting pieces were on show which over the years had been given to him as gifts. A short drive and we were back ‘home’ to where we were staying. We were grateful for time to ‘get our suitcases in order’ as we had a very early start the next morning - taxi arriving at 4am to drive us to Luton airport - bound for Aberdeen in bonny Scotland. An early night indeed!

The chair from which Winston Churchill painted

THAT SCARY BIRD (NO! NOT THE ONE IN THE TREE)!

I've discovered that the 'friendly' Butcher Bird who lives in a tree in my front yard - is not at all friendly - at least at present it's not.

For the past 10 days or so when I've gone to the letter box, or to potter in the garden or bring the garbage bin up from the road, the Butcher Bird would appear quite quickly in a nearby branch and sit kinda peering down at me. I thought it was 'asking' for a tidbit of bread as I'd seen it sometimes in the back yard when the Rainbow Lorikeets have been flying in for theirs. It seemed quite shy then and would only fly down to retrieve some bread if I threw it quite close to where it was sitting, and then only after what appeared to be quite long 'inspection' of the morsel. I got a scare recently when coming back from the letterbox to hear a loud 'clack' beside me and realised the bird had flown very close to me and continued up into a tree. It un-nerved me for a second or two until I realised it was Mr or Mrs Butcher Bird. Oh well, it must want bread real bad to do that was my thought.

After having this busy bird 'swoop' at me three times now I've realised (slow learner here I think)! that the poor thing is protecting a nest. There are several of these birds in our area, one of them found dead on the ground recently with an 'attacked head' - the work we suspect of a flock of dreadful Indian Myna birds who terrorise the bird colony around our home. This seems to be their modus operandi when wanting to rid other birds of what they consider their territory. I've actually seen one of these scavengers attack a Rainbow Lorikeet in this manner. Dreadful to watch!

Anyway to get back to the Butcher Bird household. Since it dawned on me that the bird is actually trying to frighten me away from its nest, I'm really rather apprehensive about going outside the front door! I know it sounds foolish - I'm sure the bird wouldn't actually touch me - but I simply don't like the thought of being 'dive bombed'. It's not being aware that it's going to happen that freaks me. I'm sure if my neighbours have seen me in the past few days surrepticiously edging my way down the path they would certainly wonder what had come over me. Since the majority of them go out to work during the day, I don't think they've had to wonder.

These birds belong to the magpie family and from what I've read, they usually don't swoop from the front - I'm sure that's correct since this fellow certainly came each time from behind me. I'm thinking maybe I should buy one of those kids plastic yellow hard hats and glue a pair of eyes on the back. They say a plastic ice cream container works OK as well. Fortunately this kind of behaviour only happens between September and November - until the chicks have fled the nest.

Baby Butcher Bird taken 2007

Even though I've found it scary, I still have to marvel at the way God's little creatures take care of their young. Fancy something so small taking on something of human being size! Not a day goes by that God doesn't teach me more about the person He is! I am grateful and blessed!

Blessings friends!

Wattle Day - September 1

Along the back fence are growing tall wattle trees. The bane of our lives once the seed pods begin to fall later in summer – and the tiny twigs and leaves are a constant problem in the filter which cleans the pool. The seeds spread everywhere – even between the paving tiles and tiny cracks wherever they can squeeze, only to sprout in abundance all through the year. They were planted by the water utility people after they reclaimed the land at the back of our place. They grow very tall, at least 30 to 35 feet, are not a particularly stable tree and only last perhaps up to 10 years before they topple over, they are a positive pain in the butt!

So why are they planted in the first place? Well I guess mainly because they grow quickly, and to boot, their yellow fluffy flower balls have become the national flower of Australia. It’s adoption as the national flower appears to be confirmed by its introduction into the design of the Australian armorial bearings in 1912. Although its popularity was evident for much of the 20th century, it wasn’t until 1988, the year of Australia’s bicentenary, that it was proclaimed as the national floral emblem. Wattles are always associated here with the coming of Spring and in 1992, the 1 September was formally declared ‘National Wattle Day.’

Australians representing their country in international sporting events usually wear the national colours of green and gold which is said to be based on wattle foliage and flower colour and they are also seen as being symbolic of Australia.

But despite it being 1st of September and therefore Wattle Day here ‘downunder,’ I was just thinking, it will be a great day in my back yard when these particular trees succumb to a really strong wind and turn their roots up towards the heavens!