Enjoy the journey.

Tag: wildlife

Not-Quite-Total War

IMG_5971

Our yard is seeing a lot of visitors right now, most welcome, others not so much. We’re currently winning the long-standing disagreement about who the bananas belong to (with protests from the rats) but I’m having unusual trouble in the leafy greens!

IMG_6103

I’m not really into absolute destruction when it comes to garden nasties. My usual caterpillar control is largely laissez-faire, based on reasonable consumption, natural predation and a small amount of direct intervention. The main part of the strategy is just encouraging paper wasps to colonise the yard. These ladies carefully inspect the broccoli for grubs, then carry off what they find to chew into caterpillar pulp for their babies.

IMG_4286

I had a reasonable deal going with the cabbage moth caterpillars; they keep their activities modest, I squish only those who make themselves impossible to ignore. Anyone else who evades the wasps is free to inhabit the vegetable beds (and is actually fairly welcome; I like their soft green colour and retiring nature). But these new horrors aren’t content to munch on a leaf or two; they gnaw their way down through the central bud and destroy any new leaves that try to form. They’ll even chew their way down through the bud into the stem and kill the plant completely!

Because these little beasts are safely embedded in the leaf buds, my wasps can’t find them. Even hand-squishing them is difficult, because at a touch, they wriggle backward in the most revolting way and drop further into the plant. No matter how much time Maddy and I spend crouched in the brassica bed with a pointy stick and a gumboot at the ready, it doesn’t seem to be enough. I’m reluctantly considering Dipel as a potential solution but…

IMG_5408

The potential for collateral damage is just too high!

Dipel is an organic control method specific to caterpillars, so it won’t harm my other little visitors, like ladybeetles and bees. It also isn’t airborne, so if I put it on the vegie beds, it’s unlikely to escape. But Hawk Moth caterpillars (like that beauty above) are my favourite summer guests and the real reason why I grow grapes. They just aren’t something I’m willing to risk.

IMG_5421

These lovelies inhabit the grape vines from about November on, and are almost at the end of their current munching season. While they may brandish a menacing spike on their back end, this is actually soft, floppy and entirely ornamental, as is the line of eyes along their patterned sides.

IMG_5412

I love how fat and soft they are, the variety of colours they come in, and the way they pretend to be invisible, while plonking their podgy bodies on the slenderest of stems and dropping enormous, coffee-bean sized poos all over the back veranda. They’re one of my loveliest garden ornaments and as long as they need to use the backyard, I’m reluctant to do anything that might cause them harm.

That said, though, the cold weather is coming, and with it, my need to enlarge the brassica crops. I’m hoping that winter will solve some of this problem for me, but before then, I need my plants to grow! So, for now, I expect to spend a lot of time hunched over in the rain, digging out nasties to squash, with a damp dog as my reluctant company. Whether or not I will break remains to be seen.

What would you do?

Gem

XX

Spring has Sprung (Away!)

IMG_5256

Things are looking very summery this morning. The cat is melting, the grass is turning crunchy and the cicadas are already tuning up for what looks like it’s going to be a long, hot day. Our extended game of musical couches has made us pretty late to the party this year; now that we’re finally feeling like fresh starts and spring cleaning, the season for it is almost over!

Melted Fu

But …. The jacarandas are still in bloom, our coastal evenings are still gentle and cool… the time for new beginnings is not yet completely gone. And that’s just as well, since there’s one very important new beginning happening on the median strip in the middle of a nine-way intersection near our house.

IMG_3967

That’s a plover (Vanellus milus) also known as a Masked Lapwing, a mad, idiotic, insomniac bird found all over northern, eastern and central Australia. Plovers walk around and feed all day, then fly around and scream all night. I have no idea if or when they sleep, but it’s clearly only when no-one is watching.

You get the idea; plovers are very active birds. However that particular plover, spotted on the median strip a little over a week ago was, on first sighting, doing something that a plover simply does not do.

It was sitting.

As soon as our eyes met, the plover leapt up and hurried away as nonchalantly as it could. And I thought “Hmmmm……”

The next day, there it was again. Same place, same bird, same nonchalant trot from its seat. And I thought “Aha!”

With a quick look for traffic, I zipped across the road, up onto the median strip and there it was:

IMG_3895

Now if that doesn’t say springtime, what does?

I have a certain amount of experience when it comes to spotting plover nests, but it isn’t as though they’re very good at hiding them. A plover couple will find or scrape a very slight depression into a patch of short grass or dirt, then the female lays her eggs in it. Kin and I spent much of September annoying the Clarence Town plovers by hunting down and inspecting their efforts.

IMG_4883

The owners of those three eggs had carefully constructed their nest in a wheel rut in a parking area… in exactly the same place where they’d recently lost their first clutch to the back wheel of a ute!  They were most indignant when my mother built a fence around it to prevent the same thing from happening again.

(Indignant or not, that fence did the trick. All three of those babies hatched safely and were last seen trekking about near the creek, with both of their parents in attendance.)

My intersection plover might not have actually built on the road, but she was still very close to it, so I didn’t stay and look at her nest for very long. She’d developed two broken wings and a terrible stagger and I was afraid she’d flap her way under a car if I upset her too much. I took one last shot, assured Mama Plover that her eggs were lovely and walked away quickly to let the poor thing calm down.

IMG_4909

Her husband remained in the air and followed me the length of the block, then sent a sharp gargle back to his partner to give her the all clear. By the time I was back at my gate, Mama Plover’s broken wings had miraculously healed and she was sitting again.

Kin and I checked on them every day for the next week, and that watchful husband delivered a heads-up and an all-clear every time. On Tuesday evening, we were finally rewarded by this sight:

IMG_4770

And then the next day….

IMG_3945

And there were no more broken wings for Mama and Papa Plover! Both of them, swooped us, determined to defend their babies from the paparazzi. Plovers are known for aggressively defending their nests; male plovers even have spurs on their wings, all the better to drive off photographers. Kin and I both grew up blonde in magpie country, though, so dive-bombing birds are not a new experience and we managed to get our shots without anyone (us or the plover parents) becoming too upset.

IMG_4761

The day after that, we decided to stay well away from the family, as the last eggs would be hatching. We knew that once they were all safely out of their shells, the family would no longer remain in the nest. Until they were clear of that busy intersection, we were not going to risk chasing anyone under a bus!

The family has decamped to a stretch of land near the railway line, so we’ve since been able to sneak up on them and check on the babies. I’m happy to report that all eggs hatched, all babies made it across the road and there are now four fluffy little pompoms running around behind their mother who, by the way, still views us with extreme suspicion. As soon as either one of us is sighted, she or Papa Plover give a sharp chiack! and all four of the babies drop to the ground, where they become invisible.

IMG_4845

Well, almost invisible. He’s doing his best.

Our plover family might have brought springtime back to us, but my goodness they’ve made this last week anxious! Building a nest on the ground in the middle of an incredibly busy intersection and then leading your fluffy little stilt-walkers across those roads to another stretch of bare ground where their only defence is to pretend to be invisible at extreme risk of being stepped on… it just doesn’t seem like the best survival strategy. Especially since plover couples generally nest at the same site each year, so every batch of babies will have to face the same hazards!

Still, I guess it’s worked out for them so far; plovers are extremely numerous in Australia, and they seem to adapt quite well to an urban lifestyle. And our plover family is still trekking around with all of its members, so maybe Newcastle railway lines are a better place than they seem for a new beginning.

IMG_4859

Happy springtime! And, if you’re walking to Broadmeadow Station, please be careful where you put your feet!

Treading lightly….

Gem

XX

© 2024 En Route to Awesome

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑