Well this is not really going the way I had imagined or indeed hoped it would. I'd envisioned an account of the dedicated Kestrel parents striving to raise three vigorous offspring; that idea took a dent when the third and presumably weakest chick disappeared from the nest. And today there's no point sugar-coating it: when …
Recently we had a couple of days' rain and wind which prevented me from visiting the nest site. I figured it would be a good thing to give the poor harassed parents a break from my sticky beaking (pun totally intended). But when yesterday dawned beautiful and clear, I hotfooted it up there to have …
While waiting for signs that the Kestrels were working on raising a family in the Block of Flats, I witnessed a few skirmishes in what seemed to be a serious territorial dispute. And it wasn't the other residents of the Block who were the aggressors, but a bunch of Currawongs -- the pied variety (Strepera …
As usual, updating this blog is going more slowly than developments in the real world. In other words, I'm not keeping up. I've got a good post nearly done, but in the meantime, stuff keeps happening. So I thought I'd jump the queue and do a quick post just introducing the offspring of our hard-working …
So this great tree has come up before on these pages: it's a giant old dead one, with enough holes and hollows to host a plethora of nests. I don't know what species this tree might have been, but it's one of the dead giants that seem to litter Gillamatong -- testament to a drought …
OK, in the new spirit of this blog -- which is to put out more frequent, less involved and obscure posts -- I thought I'd update you all on the kestrel situation. These pretty predators are my favourites, and this year is shaping up well for spotting and photographing a couple as they rear their …
What's up with this year's spring? None of the expected birds or butterflies are doing what's expected of them -- I'm driven to ponder some comforting thoughts that stray dangerously close to cliché.
So, as is traditional at this time of year, we went on holiday. Put briefly, the idea was to make our way to the UK to reunite with friends and family not seen since before the pandemic. For a variety of reasons we need not concern ourselves with now, we decided to go in short, …
Today marks the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and at Corner Cottage we are grateful that it marks the shortest day of the year. It's cold, it's overcast and dull, and the prospect of each day ahead being minutely longer is something to celebrate. There are two (2) ways to deal with the sub-zero …
Our recent meditation on the beauty of kestrels kicked off another down-the-rabbithole thought process -- this time into birds that mate for life . . . and those that don't. What does this have to do with the price of eggs? Not a lot, I'm afraid -- other than maybe distracting you from its rapid …
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