Swan Watch XV: Wet Down Under

The record-breaking drought seems to be a long distant memory. Melbourne (and Victoria) are getting weather more reminiscent of our tropical north rather than the Mediterranean-type climate we usually have. We are experiencing large thunderstorm systems passing through every day or two. The downpours on already sodden soils are causing localised flooding.

These couple of shots were taken at the nearby town of Whittlesea the other day. They show a park near the main street. The Plenty River has burst it’s banks and is spreading across the parkland.

Nearby, someone has spread bird-seed. It had attracted some local birds, neither of which I have shared with you before.
Crested pigeons.Aren’t the colours on their wings beautiful?When they fly their wings make a distinctive whistling sound.

And I snapped away and didn’t realise until after that these cockatoos weren’t the long-billed corellas I have shown you before. These guys are actually another species called little corellas.

On the subject of birds our baby swan is still well. Baby is still much shyer than when mother swan was around, which is good, it helps keep him/her safe. He/she is still growing and is getting closer to adult colouring.Just in case you missed my post of last night Kathleen Jones posted a wonderful review and interview on her blogs yesterday. Sorry to keep banging on, but I am excited (Kathleen's Blogs are well worth a look anyway).

Swan Watch XIV: Alone

Our baby swan seems to have been abandoned.
As you know Io has been keeping her eye on our little family. She reported that she hadn’t seen the mother swan for the past two days.

When I went down to have a look baby came over towards us.Mother swan was still nowhere to be seen.

Normally cygnets stay with their parents until they can fly at around six months of age, and sometimes until the next brood is hatched.
Baby is around four months old so this is surprising.

On the up side, cygnets feed themselves from the time they hatch and there is plenty of feed around here.
Although he/she seems a little young baby is not likely to fall prey to hawks or the like. Also baby seems more cautious on its own, staying well clear of us.I’ve got my fingers crossed that things work out OK, I’ll keep you posted.

Swan Watch XIII.

I am sorry but I have again failed to post more about my youth. My intention is to say more, but not tonight. I am too tired to travel down memory lane.

So instead I’ll do a very brief no think post.

It is couple of weeks since I have seen our swans, I haven’t been worried because Io has been keeping an eye on them and reporting on their progress every few days.
Mum and the remaining baby are still doing very well.
I think they are a favourite of many locals and have become used to being fed. When I arrived at their pond they came steaming straight over towards me.Baby continues to grow although not quite at the same explosive rate.He/she is fully feathered now although he/she doesn’t seem to have fully grown flight feathers yet.Baby’s beak is just beginning to change colour taking on a hint of the red that it will one day be.
As I left I captured this swamp hen.
And this coot popped out of the reeds:
With a baby in tow.Unlike baby swans, baby coots are, well there is no other way to say it, really, really ugly!

Swan Watch XII: Another Wet Weekend

The wet weather continues down this way. In fact it has poured on and off all weekend. Not to be deterred Deb and I went for drives on both days. Although I have to say with all the rain and mud there was no hiking this weekend.

On Saturday we headed up the Yarra valley. I had to pause near Yarra Glen to catch these piccies as the storm clouds swallowed up the distant mountains.Today we headed out again this time down to Port Phillip Bay.For a brief moment we had a glimpse of blue sky. But the muddy colour of the water is a direct result of all the runoff flowing into the bay with the continued rain.We attempted to go for a short walk but just a little way down the coast the sky got so dark again we beat a hasty retreat back in the direction of the car.
I was amazed by just how black the sea was below the clouds.

No wonder with all this rain local rivers like the Plenty River are threatening to break their banks.Now to the Swans.
On our way home we paused briefly to catch a couple of photos. And I mean a couple, it was raining again and my camera is simply not waterproof. When I have a spare $2500 I’ll buy a new one :-)
As you can see from these hastily snapped shots Mother and baby are still well.

Baby is starting to look a bit more handsome again as its scrappy down is covered by a fresh coat of feathers. He/She won’t get that glossy adult black until after a couple more moults.

Now a final word about Veiled in Shadows, thank you all for your kind words. Also thank you for those of you who have offered to review it for me.

For those of you who missed Friday’s post my book is available on Amazon and you can read an extract here .

I am thinking of posting additional extracts over coming weeks, what do you think?

Swan Watch XI: Unseasonable Weather

I have barely posted recently and I have spent even less time visiting other people’s blogs. First I was away at my Mum’s and since then work and life have just been sucking up so much time. Hopefully you’ll see me around the blogosphere a bit more in the near future.

You'll have to forgive me for being so negligent in responding to your comments. I hope things might be getting more back to normal soon, but we will see.

Io did the swan patrol for me this week because Deb and I headed in the opposite direction. More about that in the moment.

First to the swans. Unfortunately, we have no more news about the injured cygnet. We’ll just have to hope that no news is good news.

On a cheerier note mother swan and the remaining baby are doing well. Io has captured some beautiful piccies to prove it.

The swans are very used to Io and Damian now, when they come down to the ponds edge the swans usually cruise over to check them out.Today they were back in their original pond, I liked this piccie of them coming closer through the reeds.The remaining baby continues to grow at an almost unbelievable rate. It’s hard to believe this strapping youth is the cute fuzzball of only a few weeks ago. I can’t help think of Hans Christian Andersen’s ugly duckling now.

But of course the sinuous curves of baby’s neck reminds us that he/she will be a beauty like mum before too long.Now to Deb and my weekend. Most of the good folk who read my blog live in the Northern Hemisphere and are half way through Autumn. We down here in Oz are halfway through spring and the weather should be warming up.

It isn’t! This is the scene at Kinglake yesterday. It hasn’t snowed where we are (it almost never does in Melbourne and near the coast). But it has been so cold that it has snowed in the hills around here. We can see Kinglake from our street.

I have never heard of snowfalls in the country near Melbourne in October. But there it is.
Higher up at Mount Donna Buang it was still thick.

This is the road to the summit.Being a kid at heart I couldn’t help but walk up to the summit.

Past this gate.To the top where it started to snow again.On the walk back down.
This wattle peeping through the snow further down the mountain is a reminder that it is supposed to be spring.

Swan Watch X: A Disaster.

I am afraid I have some sad news about the swan family. While I was away at my mum’s Io was keeping an eye on the swans for all of us. On Wednesday last week she phoned me to let me know there was a problem. She and her boyfriend Damian found the mother swan and the two cygnets at one of the nearby ponds.

This is a piccie Io took of the three of them using her phone. Initially they all looked ok. But as Io watched they climbed out onto the bank and she saw that one of the cygnets had a huge wound on its leg that was in Io’s words ‘pouring blood’.

Io made the decision to call the RSPCA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) to see if they could get someone out to help. They waited near the swans until an RSPCA volunteer arrived. The volunteer in question was unsure of what to do and phoned his boss for instructions.

In the end Io and Damian using RSPCA equipment caught the cygnet for the volunteer. Io says the poor thing seems to have been savaged by a dog. In addition to the bleeding wound there were also some ‘puncture wounds’.

The volunteer took the baby away to the shelter to be assessed by a vet. He said that if it was not too badly injured it would be treated and looked after until it was fit to be released. He did warn that if its injuries were too bad the vet would euthanize the poor thing.

Io was reasonably confident, she says that the baby was still moving around under its own steam and was eating before she caught it. Unfortunately, we have had no more news, Io has tried phoned the shelter a number of times but has not yet managed to talk to the people who were responsible for our cygnet. I will let you all know as soon as we know anything.

Now a couple of final photos Io took of mother swan and her remaining baby. I am probably imagining it but they seem rather forlorn to me.

Sunday Swan Watch IX: The Way of the Pelican.

I spoke too soon when I said my computer is back to normal. It has been crashing when I have had more than a couple of windows open at a time. I’ve checked it through and I don’t think it is a hardware problem. Methinks the time has come to reinstall Windows. I have all my data backed up (mostly 1,000s of photos and multiple copies of all my writing), so I’m not going to loose anything on a reinstall. What a headache in any case.

Now to the birds.

As you know if you are following my Swan Watch series I didn’t see them at all last week, in fact the last time I saw them was about two and a half weeks ago.

Io has taken the swans to heart and spends as much time as I do (actually probably more) looking for them.

Any way yesterday she reported she had spotted them, so when I headed out I went pretty much straight to them. They were on a pond just down below our house, where we haven’t seen them before.

I got quite a surprise as they came steaming in my direction. In two and a bit weeks, the cygnets have grown an amazing amount.

They have grown from cute and fluffy to gawky looking teenagers.This piccie shows just how big they are now, in comparison to their mum.
A few portraits.

MumAnd babiesI think the babies are still quite cute (in an ugly duckling kind of way)
And they continue to show more of the graceful form they will have as adults.

A new arrival turned up, an Australian Pelican.
The lighter feathers on these guys are actually snowy white but this fellow was painted by the rich golden light of the early evening.He/she had a bit of a stretch and then Hopped up on a rock to do a bit of preening.I was briefly distracted by this chestnut teal.Then this noisy fellow made a bigger distraction.When I turned back the pelican was busy.
Busy doing Pelican Tai Chi !

He settled down again and seemed to inscrutably say “What are you laughing at?”

Now finally, this may be my last post for at least a few days.

I will be away in the north of NSW for most of next week. It’s my mum’s 81st birthday so I am going up to pay her a visit.

She has an internet connection, but I am not sure if I will be able to upload much.

At least I should be able to get some time for writing in the evenings.