Gifts from the clouds

After a few really hot days "something" had to give - and it was both the temperature and the dry that "gave". For absolutely months now my patient husband has been watering my garden morning and night. We have had precious little rainfall since June - just a couple of days when we had showers. That changed this morning. I had just cleared up the driveway after covering it with a thick layer of grass and weeds, pulled out of my gardens when I chanced to look up and noticed the black sky creeping up. Cleaning up was put into high gear and the garden tools stored back in the garage by the time the first rumble of thunder happened. By the time I had showered and changed the rain was pelting down.

1/160sec   F/4.2    ISO 200

I suddenly remembered my son's washing on the line and raced out to rescue it and put it in the clothes dryer - the fine spray from the impact of the rain on the ground had saturated everything! I came upstairs and spotted our friendly lorikeet looking very bedraggled on the cage over the food dished - the dishes were all filled with rainwater so held nothing of interest for her.

1/60sec      F 4.2   ISO 200

I took pity and put a small dish of raw sugar on the table - about half a teaspoon full - and looked out later to see the bird and her mate, tucking in with ecstasy written all over them!
A look out the back door and I had to grab the camera again, our rainwater tank was full and running over.

1/20 sec   F 5.6   ISO 200

Not only was the rainwater tank running over but the roof guttering was running over too.

1/20 sec   F 5.6   ISO 200

One thing I have forbidden my nearly 72 year old husband to do is to get up on the roof to clear the gutters! We have a two storey house and that is a long way to fall.
So we have had enough rain in one hour to fill our water tank, top up the swimming pool and wash the dirt and remaining weeds off the drive. We have also had enough rain (33mm in one hour) to ensure that we shall have green grass for Christmas - and lots of noise from mowers on Boxing Day! Its "all good" as my son is want to say!
AJ

The big itch

The morning was a little downcast - grey skies and misty rain coming and going, so the light was excellent for taking shots of the lorikeets - this time after they had been gorging themselves on my feeder! Of course I had to avoid getting the sky in any of my shots because it was so white that I would have ended up with silhouettes but this was a good opportunity to set up the tripod and use the 70-300mm lens again.
I had been admiring the bird shots that had been sent to me by a friend and taking note of how he achieved deeper depth of field by increasing his ISO I gave it a go too. The birds were all in the dark side of a creeper covered tree stump so it was fairly dark. The ISO I used was 800 - frowned on by "the experts" because high ISO puts grain into a photo.
Here are a few of my shots of the lorikeets. What you will notice is that they are busy trying to get rid of an itch!

 F/5.6 1/500 ISO800 232mm

 f/6.3  1/320  ISO800 300mm

f/4.2  1/250  ISO800 130mm

F/9  1/400 ISO800  210mm 

I should attach a recording of the sound of the birds to play while this page is being viewed!
AJ

A new toy

It was a big surprise when I opened one of my gifts from Colin on Christmas morning. The gift he had given me was the size of my flip mobile phone and was a JVC camera for taking blog movies! He and my son Paul had been aware of me checking out the results of the different blog cameras on youtube and with Paul's help - because Colin doesn't even know how to turn a computer "on" - a camera was purchased "on-line". It is actually a superceded JVC camera and very cheap, ($135.00) but what the heck! It is so much fun to use! This is my first attempt with it - imagine taking video with your left hand as your right hand is doing the chores, that is what I did!

Click on the video to view in Youtube - some of it has been cropped in this blog.
The results are far from perfect and the quality is not really all that crash hot - but it is better than the quality from Steven's standard definition hard drive camera.
The camera model is GC-FM1 and takes an SDHC card . I simply push the card into the laptop, use Windows explorer to move the video files (MOV) to my hard drive and then edit them with Premiere Elements 9. The voice over is recorded with Cool Edit Pro 2 using a Skype headset microphone.
Obviously the video would have been much better if I had been doing more than just making sure the lens was pointing in the right direction. But I wanted to share my "number one" video with my blog camera!

We have had so much rain just lately that the lorikeets have spent almost every morning pooping on our chairs! Once they have been fed we have to get the hose and wash everything down! Because they are nectar eaters the bird poo is just wet - but sometimes they have found some purple fruit and their squirts are rather showy! Mulberry season is a good time for multiple verandah hosings!

Hmm! Should I have shared that with you? !!!!!!
AJ

Wet Sunday

It is always good to roll over on a Sunday morning and catch a few extra moments of "doing nothing" before getting out of bed - this morning it was a bit more difficult to roll over for the almost deafening sound of falling rain. I find it quite incredible just how much water can fall out of one cloud - and the cloud that was hovering above us in the early daylight hours (4.30) must have been quite massive. It must also have been dropping its load of water long before I woke up because when I looked out of the window there was an inland sea reaching half way up our land.
The main bedroom overlooks the swimming pool and normally we have a large area of lawn between the pool and the little creek . . . but not this morning

F/11  0.4 seconds  ISO 160

I was rather surprised this photo turned out - it was taken hand held.(leaning on the windowsill)  I used Aperture priority so that I could get a wide depth of field which meant that the camera chose a slow shutter speed - with such a slow shutter speed it really would have been better if I used a tripod. (It was incredible that I had the camera in the bedroom let alone take a tripod there too!). Incidentally the pool is not directly beneath the window, it would be about six metres from the wall of the house.
Before I make breakfast I have to feed my dogs and the wild birds or my life would not be worth living! The bird feeder extends out beyond the shelter of the roof so to keep the seeds dry I put that dish on the floor of the veranda. As long as we keep Byron away from the sunflower seeds (he loves them) the birds will not mind coming in to graze on the floor rather than in their usual place. Byron is not interested in chasing the lorikeets - they do not look like white hens, it is the sulphur crested cockatoos that he chases (and we encourage)!

F/10   0.6 Sec    ISO 160

From this photo of the birds feeding you can see that the water has overflowed the creek which has come up past the dividing fence through the centre of our land, that open gate you can see is actually between our property and that of our next door neighbours. The gate is opened to allow the faster flowing water to go through without pushing the fences over. The gate was closed but is never latched and this morning's rain has pushed it wide open.

Here is a sixty second video taken this morning just to give a taste of the sights and sounds of our breakfast encounters.

Now that the rain has eased and the lorikeets have mostly had their fill of their seeds - and since I haven't swept up the mess they made with all the seed husks, another visitor has just arrived with a yell of defiance. I left typing this blog to see where it was and sure enough, he was about to indulge!

F5.6    1/60 Sec     ISO 450

The rain has about stopped and already the water is retreating, still over our land but only half as much as first thing. The change in the weather can be quite exciting!

Now to clean up that veranda!

AJ

Our special bird is back

A lot has happened this weekend _ I have been out with the camera once again, but all that has paled into the background with the joyful arrival of our very special bird this morning.

f /9  1/13  ISO800

Before we went off on our four wheel drive trip Twisty was an intermittent visitor but when we came back home she had not returned with the other birds.
It took two full days of putting out food before the lorikeets rediscovered we were really "back". on the first morning we had two birds come and feed and the next day there were a couple more but on day three the message was out and the crowd returned! But not Twisty.
Neither Colin nor I mentioned this for a while but eventually we sadly mentioned that since so many years had gone by that just maybe we had seen the last of our feathered friend.
This morning, 24 days after our return, as I was pouring out the seeds into the dish, a lorikeet almost flew into me and sat on the rail beside me. I just assumed that the bird had become so accustomed to my ritual that it was no longer fearful of me. Then Colin stepped outside carrying his breakfast cereal to put on the table and a lorikeet flew over to him and landed on his arm. There was no mistaking the message! "I'm back!" It was our favoured bird. (And "favourite"!)
Straight away Colin rushed inside and found the tiny dish we use for Twisty and put in some dry raw sugar. Talk about happiness! If a lorikeet could only purr this bird was purring!
Of course the camera came out (as it always does!) but the head bobbing in and out of the dish at breakneck speed meant that I had to take several shots to get one! Hurray for digital cameras!
After clearing the table after our breakfast I took my camera to the corner of the veranda where I have several plants plus a new one I picked up on Sunday at a flower show. It was a Rose Show and I bought a Hydrangea! A brilliant deep pink one, so I wanted to take a shot of the flowers, the sun had peeped out and they looked so lovely. I bent down to pull the plant forward so that the background was only greenery, not other flowers, and as I did so three other lorikeets flew into the plants only inches away from me and perched there watching what I was doing. The birds have never behaved like this before, they have even waited until I filled their feed dish before flying down. I raised the camera to record this unusual moment and Twisty Beak squawked in jealousy and flew at the other brave birds and chased them away! So I went back to the table and took another of Twisty! How vain! Now I know Twisty is a female!

f/9  1/100 ISO800

Soon after taking this shot there was a lorikeet alarm squawk and every lorikeet in the trees, the ground below the feed dish and Twisty on the table all took flight simultaneously and disappeared into the distance.
Now it is raining. The sun has gone and it is pouring down.
AJ

Sunless Sunday

The week end has been Abysmal - the rain so heavy that we found it impossible to pack up our camper trailer and the thought of putting up a tent in this weather has made us re-think our travel plans. Now we shall leave a couple of  days later - and even the weather in the interior will be better.
So this morning we were able to have our customary bacon and eggs breakfast (our once a week special breakfast!) accompanied by some of our home grown mini tomatoes stewed with a sprinkling of veggie stock powder.
When washing up our friend Twisty Beak came to the window and tapped on the window. Unable to resist him Colin went out with a small dish of diluted raw sugar. Rather than put it down on the table as we normally do, Colin held it and Twisty hopped onto his hand.
Always ready with one camera or other I dropped the tea towel and took a shot of the happy couple!

I wont add any shooting details for this picture because it was taken with the point and shoot, Samsung. This is purely automatic so the shutter and aperture are not really applicable to SLR use. You can see that the sky is pure white - the famous blue skies of the Gold Coast have left us for a while.
I have isolated part of the photo to show the strange beak that this little bird has had to cope with.

It looks as if a second beak has grown inside the loose first lower bill. This will be why Twisty has been able to eat - and survive. If you look back at the top photo (this second shot is a cropped selection of the first) you may see Twisty Beak's mate in the little tree behind Colin.
Referring back to the story and pictures of the kookaburra and the baby. I can understand the concern over the little one's hand being so close to the bird - it has such a nasty looking beak. To be honest I don't think I would have put the child quite that close! However, the kookaburra had been offered bits of biscuit earlier and we had see how placid it was - no snapping of the beak or lunging out at the proffered tit bit. Steven was confident that the bird would not snap but would have been more likely to take flight.
AJ

Welcome back!

We had a very pleasant surprise yesterday. While having breakfast out on the veranda - the weather is warmer now so the temperature is very pleasant outside at eight when we have breakfast - a familiar piercing whistle made us look up to the railing.

We haven't seen Twisty Beak in quite a few months and had assumed that she had either died or else some well meaning person had captured her and put her in a cage. So it was exciting (more like exhilarating) to see our feathered friend again.

"Come on down" I coaxed and dug out a spoonful of marmalade. That was what she wanted! Quick as a flash she was on the table by my hand and happily licking the soft jelly off the orange peel. She doesn't like the lumps! All the while she was calling out and a few minutes later her mate flew in. Much more timid but still encouraged to get closer by Twisty Beak.
Because I was looking across the glare of sunlight on the glass table I handed the camera to my son who kindly obliged me by taking lots of photos of the birds as they came in close.
The two birds returned again this morning but only for a very short time. Its good to know Twisty Beak is still healthy - that handicap of a deformed beak has been no handicap at all.
AJ

Wot a wet day!

We were awakened through the night with the sound of water running into the swimming pool - this only happens when the rain is heavy enough to run down the guttering and into the bypass that we have set up that allows the rain to top up the pool.

The sound of water falling on to water has a devastating effect on me which meant that sleep was over and I had to "go for a walk"! It rained steadily all night long and bu nine o clock we measured 55mm had fallen. That, by old measurements, is two inches of rain. A good fall of that wet stuff!

But it has continued all day long since then and it has been a good excuse to sit in front of my laptop and type and collate.

This evening we are supposed to get all dressed up and "go out" but it looks like we shall be dressing in practical gear rather than decorative! We are off to see how two of my videos fared in a local Video competition. I am not really a competitive person but I allowed myself to be persuaded to enter this competition! It will be interesting to see the videos that my two are up against. Maybe I don't stand a chance at all - but that truly does not bother me at all. I know that the videos I have made have been received well by the people I have shown them too thus far and that is what matters more.

While there is still enough light to see outside - it has been grey and dismal all day and what light there is will be fading soon - I took a photo from this room across the shade house and looking across the neighbour's land. The water from the creek has crawled onto the lower section - but it has been up and down a few times today so we shall not be having major flooding problems. As long as the water can get away when the rain eases it means that all is well.

f/5.6 1/13 sec 22mm ISO200

The second photo is taken across our own back yard looking from the veranda where I feed the birds.

f/5.5 1/20sec 42mm ISO200

I heard the familiar sound of a bird colliding with a glass window and went to investigate. Byron was at the ready to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. (He tried it once - and the finch drowned!) Fortunately there was no little body stretched out on the tiles so Byron's assistance was not needed. But seeing how the birds had returned to scrape the dish for any seeds that might have been missed this morning I retrieved my camera to keep a record. The lorikeets are not really seed eaters - they will happily eat sunflower seeds until they burst (I only give them a few so they don't do themselves damage) but the small grain is for the finches and thanks to the rain these tiny birds are showing no fear of the much larger lorikeets. I think there are two varieties in the dish - the double bar finches (they have several common names) and the red-brow finches. Click on the photos to see a larger version.

f/5.6 1/15sec 52mm ISO 200

I have a pot plant garden on my veranda too and a pair of lorikeets had made themselves quite at home roosting cosily side by side on the branch of the potted tree nice and dry under the veranda roof!

f/5.6 1/8 sec 78mm ISO 200

AJ

Birds at breakfast time

Some wild birds seem to forget that they are supposed to be afraid of people. Rainbow lorikeets are birds that easily adapt to being companions to people and make a habit of visiting the place where they know there is a "hand-out". Every bird (to me) is identical and the only way I know that these birds have been visiting us for years and years is because of the occasional bird with some sort of deformity.
The bird closest to the camera has a double lower bill. The large bit at the bottom is not controllable by the bird at all, inside this flapping beak is a smaller but usable bill. When this bird first came to our feeder she was quite young - in a young lorikeet the bill is quite dark - and the other birds would crowd her out from the feeder. We took to putting a special small dish on the table and would wave a hand to keep the other birds from muscling in on her as she took some of the sugar treat. (Raw sugar diluted in water). She came in for a few months and disappeared and we feared the worst but one day she was back - and with her was a juvenile lorikeet. "Twisty Beak" had become a parent! Every year this same pattern occurred and she (or he!) has been returning to visit us for at least five years - we haven't kept count but feel sure that we are right about the longitude of her visiting!
Twisty Beak is still bullied by the majority of the other visiting lorikeets and we still have to chase them back while she gets some of what they know to be delicious! They devour their own large dish of sugary water and white bread in under two minutes! Mind you, fifty birds licking and sucking up only one litre of liquid and soggy bread means that none of them get very much! It is because of the many times we have seen Twisty Beak that we know that the other birds have also been coming to our bird feeder for years too.
There are other birds with toes that are curled up permanently - caused by them being brought up in a hollow tree that has had mud in the bottom when they were first out of the egg and the mud has dried on their feet causing a problem as they grew. In spite of their deformity the birds all seem to manage to survive and thrive.
AJ

More wet weather

An night of steady rain has brought several changes to our immediate environment. The old Eucalypt has burst into flower and the billabong - a horse-shoe loop in a creek that has been by-passed by the main creek - is full and is overflowing its banks. Our home is on this small billabong and as it is not recognised as a waterway by the "powers that be" we can pump water to our gardens from it without needing a license.
The lorikeets that screech and make so much noise in the mornings demanding a sugary treat are now biding their time doing what lorikeets should be doing - taking nectar from the blossom. After the rain that fell through the night the nectar is a bit dilute and this is why they will come in even greater numbers to the feed dish in the wet.
The land the house resides on was once part of a dairy farm and only had two Eucalypts on it when we first bought it. I now have a small forest of native trees that were purchased primarily for the fruit and flowers that attract birds. One of these trees has masses of purple plums on it and so far I have not seen one bird eat any of them! The tree is the Davison Plum - I presume that it might be food for possums since the birds are not interested. Or maybe tree kangaroos - but they are a creature of far north Queensland, not the Gold Coast!
AJ