A Very Welcome Visitor

Moth Quiz 5
Aleph, Vav, Yud, Number 1 in April.
Answer: Hebrew Character

Moth Quiz 6

Is this Debrett's favourite beverage? 


Thursday, April 30 

We've heard the male calling, from the woods at the bottom of the garden, for the last two weeks or so. A call unlike that of any other British bird. The only one to rival it is the Australian Kookaburra. We became accustomed to a dawn awakening by a Kooka which called from a tree in my daughter's Brisbane garden.

Morning roads in Brisbane were populated by running/jogging/lycra-clad Aussies. I reckon they'd all been awakened by a Kooka. We were usually up and out birding at that hour, to escape the heat and to catch the birds doing the same thing. My daughter and family emigrated in 2004 and we've visited them five times in all, the last time five years ago. No more 23-hour plane journeys, with all the travel time either end plus waits at airports, for us. All but the last stay, which was for four weeks, was for six weeks, which always included a trip elsewhere. A week on Tasmania and two weeks in Outback Queensland were my favourites. The latter especially, where we stayed in sheep shearers' quarters on a ranch so big that it had four airstrips and a plane to fly between them, to look after the sheep and cattle.

Where was I?

Oh yes. I was working at my computer yesterday afternoon, doing a long-threatened job. Sorting out all my Australian photographs stored on Dropbox whilst Pam was pacing the living room having a phone chat with Sue. She broke off to say, '' get your camera and come over here, there's a Green Woodpecker on the front lawn''. These are usually exceptionally wary birds. If a curtain twitches in the house when they are at the very bottom of the back garden, they're off. I approached the double-glazed window carefully and there was a female digging for ants along the edges of the lawn. The male has a red moustachial stripe. It was still raining, not heavily, but enough to make its feathers look a little bedraggled. The windows haven't been cleaned this year either - our window cleaner suddenly told us that he was finishing. 

Here are a few of the photos I took.

When I emptied my desktop bin, I'd discarded nearly four thousand pics. Many of them duplicates. Those kept are now in differently labelled folders e.g. family, birds, mammals, etc. instead of visit dates.

Moth-ing continues to be underwhelming. One new Micro this week, identification confirmed by my moth, especially micro, guru, Richard.

Acleris heracliana

Garden Update.

I've positioned the Runner Bean canes this morning, ready for Adrian to tie up to-morrow morning, the plants are hardening off in the cold frame. They'll still need to be fleece protected when planted, in case of frosts and to stop the pheasants from pecking the tops off. The Courgette plants are ready for planting too. 

The tomato plants are in flower.