Kookaburra in my yard - Telephoto lens

 A kookaburra in my yard.

Nature documentaries would have more engaging footage:  this is remarkable only in that it's in my yard...!!!

 

 

 --GG

Snake in a bucket

I keep a bucket under the faucet to salvage dripping water, rather than let it go to waste (I use it to water the plants). When I was doing some outdoor tasks after dark last night, I saw a snake head sticking out of the bucket -- so I went to investigate.

Near as I can tell, it was just resting on the bottom of the bucket -- underwater.  And then every few minutes it would stick its snout out of the water, breathe a bit -- and then go back under.  Interesting:  I didn't know that they did that.

I called the kids over to take a look.  One of my sons asked me to dump the footage onto his USB flashdrive, so he could show his class at school -- so I edited some footage together.

Once I did that, I figured I may as well post it to YouTube.



It's a carpet snake.  A constrictor.  Harmless enough.  Probably the diameter of my wrist.


--GG

Another snakeskin

Yesterday this was draped over our front gate; what with the opening and closing of it, it fell off.

Near as I can tell, a snake climbed over the fence as it was shedding, and left the skin behind.

My foot in the photo as a size reference.


--GG

Weird green beach worms

On Halloween (31 Oct), there was an informal gathering at a local park by some of my wife's co-workers.  The kids and I wandered around on the beach -- and found these peculiar little (green!) worms.



After a brief Google image search for "green beach worms", I found this blog entry, which says that they're called green paddle worms.


Here's a photo from their blog:

So:  there ya go.  :)


--GG

Finally a large spider

When I moved to Australia -- Lo, those many years ago -- it seemed like there were **tons** of fairly large spiders about.

But recently, I haven't been seeing any spiders except for teeny little things, about the size of ladybugs.

But!  This afternoon, B1 (Blondie Boy) asked to show me something in the hall.  "What's that?", he asked, pointing up near the ceiling.

Ah!  A spider!  And a decent-sized one, too.

I got a duster-on-a-stick from the broom closet, and had The Girl wave it about to the right of the spider.  Meanwhile, I got up on a stepstool with a plastic container from the "dirty dishes" counter, and a flattened cereal box, to catch it.

I wasn't worried about it being venomous:  as a rule of thumb, the smaller ones are the venomous ones; the larger ones don't need to be.


I took it outside and took a few snapshots:

 ...and...

And then I released it, and tried to get it to run away to safety (I've heard that large spiders and small spiders compete for territory:  so having large spiders around is actually a good thing).

Here are some photos (with rules with inches, and centimeters) for size comparisons.

 

So -- a 5" leg span?


I showed the photos to The Lady.  She reckons its a huntsman.  I believe her.


--GG

Birds at the Australian Zoo

About half of the animal demonstrations at the noontime (11am?) show at the Australia Zoo was birds.  The other half was crocodiles.

Once the bird demos started, it was easy to tell why some people chose to sit where they did:  they were near where the birds would come, perch, and then fly back to the trainers.

This clip shows some huge sort of bird.  I don't remember the name -- but it was **huge**!!!  It came flying in from over the stadium wall.  Near the end (0:07 - 0:12) you can see a trainer in the lower left of the screen.  Relative to that person, I reckon the wingspan is about 8 feet, maybe wider.

In this one, you can't really make out the audio, but they asked for volunteers from the audience.  The woman was told that the birds were trained to fetch rectangular pieces of paper.  She was told to take a $10 bill, fold it into quarters, pinch it between her fingers and then hold her arm out.

Yeah, the person laughing like a dork is me.


This final video actually happened in our backyard:  it's a willy wagtail. The reason for the name is apparent once you see them.

And -- them's the birds!  :)


--GG

Australia Zoo

Yesterday we visited Australia Zoo -- founded by Steve Irwin and his mom and dad, and carried on by Steve's wife and kids.

Good stuff!

Steve's memory was everywhere, such as the sign at the end of the parking lot, indicating their wildlife hospital (see above)...


..and the ''no entry'' sign, below, with Steve's outline.

Below is a take on the old joke:  ''Walk this way...''

At their noontime show (or maybe it was 11 o'clock?  I forget), it was neat that despite their fame, the Irwins still participate.  Here's Terri (from Oregon, originally!):

...and here's Bindi:

Bob is off to the side, out of harm's way.  Terri says he's not allowed to feed the crocs until he's ten.


We saw a wombat being transferred from its main enclosure to somewhere else.  Basically, they just put a dog harness on it, and the zookeeper walked it down the path...

At the wombat pen, they had footholds for the kids embedded into the cement wall -- so that they could see over the wall.  That's a good design.

In the large, open area for wallabys (a type of small kangaroo) to wander about, they had a ''safe zone'' for them to go to when they got tired of people:  a good idea.

In the wallaby area was a wallaby that clearly had an itchy tummy:

There was a big fiberglass crocodile that was there for a photo op.

I found it interesting that none of my kids thought to ''ham it up'' and get their picture taken while being ''eaten'' by the crocodile (i.e. climbing inside its mouth) :  **my** sibs and I would've!


My wife and I thought it amusing that, after spending all that money (although it goes to a good cause) for a family admission, the kids' favorite experiences of the day were the playground, ''spinning teacup'' ride (see below), and the jumping castle.

To the Irwins' credit, they **could** charge for these -- but they don't.  They also don't charge for the noontime show that I mentioned above.  I appreciate that:  it shows class.


I can't make fun of the kids too much, though:  I was at one of the world's most famous zoos, and what did I take the most pictures of?  Wood-slab tables (in the eating area) and wooden park benches!

Here, I wanted to record the leg structure of the slab table. I have no idea whose hand and wristwatch those are:  no one I know.

Here's the bench that caught my attention, in the ''Africa'' zone.  I like how it has natural edges, rather than being milled.

Note how the back of the bench is connected.  I think these would be tusked through-tenons, but using what appears to be a railroad spike instead of a wooden wedge.

The seat, too, appears to be a tusked through-tenon.  Again, with a railroad spike.

This table -- again, with un-milled edges -- was somewhere there, as well.

As with the slab tables in the food area, I wanted to know how the legs were constructed.

So, yeah: my take-away message from the Australia Zoo is that they have neat-o tables and park benches.  Plus cute wombats and itchy wallabies.  :)


Seriously, though -- we had a good time.


--GG


UPDATE:   The Australia Zoo is about two hours north of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  It's in a specific town, and if you Google Maps it you can see that the critters, if they escaped, could end up in people's back yards pretty easily.

A local bird

The locals call these ''Willie wagtails''.  A descriptive name.

Our backyard.

--GG

Slow pan upwards

I rather like this.

It's my back yard, and my children's (somewhat rusty) swingset.

Although I miss the weather (and all the nice people I know) in Seattle -- it's still pretty neat-o to live in Australia.  Exotic (to me, anyhow).


--GG

Son of snakey

Pretty sure I mentioned the clutch of snake eggs on the edge of our front porch. And how snakey had wandered off.

Well, a few evening ago I was heading out the front door -- turned on the porch light, went to put my hand on the screen door handle and WOAH-JOSEPH!!! -- little Snakey Junior crawling across the latticework on the outside of the screen door.

I remembered the two 25c-sized holes in the screen door probably ought to be covered -- snakes belong on the outside, thank you -- so I went and got some packing tape and covered them up. By the time I got back, the little snake had moved up to the top of the screen door -- right above the outside handle. Dangit.

So, I gingerly opened the screen door, stepped out, and carefully shut it behind me, hoping that the snake wouldn't fall on my arm.


I figured the snake ought to be moved, so I got an umbrella that was out on the porch and managed to hook the snake on the tip.


I shook the umbrella a bit, and the snake fell off onto the mat. (Hm -- mat's looking a little tattered... Mostly because I ran over it with the lawn mower, when I was doing the porch edge.)



Finally, the snake wandered off amongst the boots.



It's now been several days, and I haven't seen Snakey Junior -- or any of his (her?) brothers or sisters.

I hope they're having happy lives.


--GG

Bye bye snakey

On Feb. 6th -- or maybe the day before -- a carpet snake (a constrictor; not venomous) took up residence among one of the boxes on our front porch. Every day before work, and every evening after I got home, I'd take a look to see if it was still there. It was always in its hole among the boxes, except for two or three times where it was out on the grass (in front of its hole), sunning itself.

On the second or third day, I noticed the cluster of leathery white things, about the size of a deflated soccer ball. Initially it was in the snake's hole, where the snake wrapped itself around it. Upon closer (but not too close!!!) examination, I decided it was a cluster of eggs. Neat-o!!!


After a few days, it had shoved the egg cluster out of its hole -- presumably to catch some warmth from the sun.

And, yesterday, I noticed that snakey had wandered away. Still not back today -- so, who knows?

Egg cluster is still there, though. I gently pushed it sideways, with a stick. It has a fair amount of weight -- like a medium-sized water balloon. So, yeah -- baby snakeys are probably in there.


--GG

Leetle leezord

Every few nights we get a little evening visitor, in the form of a little lizard -- probably a gecko -- on the outside of the family room window.

Maybe it's a good place for bugs.

He (or she?) strikes a few dramatic poses, hangs about for a bit, and then wanders off.

Good stuff.


--GG

Tadpole rescue

A few days ago I noticed, as I was leaving the car, that there were tadpoles in the series of mud puddles in front of our carport. This means that we've been inadverently bonking them on the head every time we arrived or left (Sorry!!!). :(

Here's a closer view of one of the mud puddles. As you can see, it's clear enough to see things on the bottom.


Thus, I mounted a Tadpole Rescue Mission. I knelt near each of the populated puddles with a soft drink cup, scooping up each tadpole (and accidentally, a bit of mud) whenever I saw one, and dumped it into a small bucket.

You can see my boot print (circled in red), which gives a sense of scale, as well as a sense of squooshiness.



I then dumped some of them into an alternative mud puddle, in our back yard, which is fairly permanent during the rainy season -- as well as out of the way of the car.



But most of them, I dumped in the kids' plastic wading pool.


I showed the tadpoles to the kids, and they were pretty interested.

Some of the tadpoles have hind legs, and two or three have leetle front legs. Cute!!!


--GG

Occasional snake

There's a local snake called a carpet snake -- a type of python -- that we **very** occasionally see around the place. I've seen one about once every two years.

My next-door brother-in-law dropped off the riding mower, as our lawn was getting pretty shaggy: it's been raining nearly every day, so hard to get a chance to mow -- but today was a nice sunny day. After parking it in our back yard, he knocked on our front door and asked if I wanted him to move a snake. I told him to just leave it be.

Using some masking tape and spray paint, I quick-like whipped up a measuring stick (dunno the technical term) like archeologists use: each stripe is 10cm; all ten stripes equal a metre.

Thus, the snake is around six feet long. Probably more -- it's hard to tell, what with its curvy-ness.

I laid the tip of the sizing stick next to the tail of the snake, as a size reference, and took some snapshots.

If you want, you can click the photos to enlarge them.




As you can see, it's kinda close to the house.

--GG

Local wildlife

About three weeks ago we came home after dark, I opened the front gate, and saw this critter, illuminated by the headlights.

A possum. Note the difference from North American possums, which are more rat-like in appearance (pointy nose; whip-like tail). Australian possums look more like red pandas: round head, snub snout, and a much thicker tail.

I happened to have my camera pouch with me, so I took a few snapshots. This is the only one that at all turned out.


--GG