Sunday Swan Watch VIII: Substitute Cute and Little Monsters.

Well thank goodness our internet service came back to normal at midnight last night.

Unfortunately, Oz doesn’t have many ISP companies and one of the ways they have come up with charging more than you should have to pay is by putting a download limit on your account. They have ‘better’ (read more expensive) accounts that have faster access and larger download limits. Deb and I have a middle range account for which we pay $79 per month. In the past the 25 gigabyte download limit was more than we ever needed (our connection isn’t fast enough for movies etc). Recently however Lu our youngest, discovered online Anime and Manga and has been pulling down so much she has used our quota.

Fortunately, there is a little more competition creeping in to the system and we will shortly (when our current contract expires) switch to another provider who will give us nearly ten times the limit for almost the same money ($89/month).

Now to the Swans, once again I have had no luck in my hunt for them. They seem to be amazingly mobile and there is quite a large area they can use. Thinking about it I guess this behaviour would be a defence mechanism to protect the cygnets. If the parents keep them moving they would be less likely to come to the attention of a predator than if they remain stationary.

As my title suggests I caught some other cute young things to share as a substitute for swanlings.

Ducklings!Two female chestnut teals have some brand new ducklings down on one of the ponds the swans call home. Unusually the two mothers seem to be sharing a single brood of eight ducklings.

Here is one of the females nervously eyeing me. They tried to urge the babies away but the ducklings are so new (I guess only hatched a day or two ago) that they weren’t very good at listening to either of their mothers.

Rather they were excitedly dabbling around in the water.I was able to get close enough to get some lovely shots with my telephoto lens.The mothers fussed around trying to lead the babies to the safety of some of the reed beds.Finally, they got the message through to the babies and the whole flotilla steamed away from me.Not far away Io pointed out something she has found recently.
A bull ant nest, not all that long ago I posted a piccie of a bull ant and recounted an anecdote about jumping around with one up my pants.

I guess I must be a glutton for punishment because I went close to get some shots. Bull ants are amazingly aggressive, but it was quite cold so they weren’t moving very quickly.

These guys are a black species (the last one I photographed was from a red species). They are huge, nearly as long as my thumb. These photos aren’t crystal clear because I wasn’t getting very close (they have a nasty sting) but I was happy enough to post them.
In the above photo you can see how large their mandibles are. They can give nasty bite, but their real weapon is their sting.

In these couple you can see how glossy black their abdomens are. Then I noticed if you look closely (I’ve blown it up so you can see) you can see me reflected in the shine as I take the pic.Now I promised Cockatoos and Parrots before my internet went on the blink so they will be my next post (assuming nothing else goes wrong).