The three amigos

In the camping ground on the Franklin foreshore, there are three greedy ducks that can often be seen around breakfast or dinner time, accosting people sitting outside their campervan, caravan or tents. They stand patiently in a queue, waiting for food. Cheeky chaps. But cute. And yes, it's the same trio each time.

Six cygnets

We'd heard from our friends at the good ship Yukon that there were cygnets around in Franklin, and on one of our dog walks along the Huon River in Franklin this week we got lucky, spotting this pair of proud parents with six beautiful tiny babies! I don't recall seeing so many in one batch or such little ones before. They came close for a look before sailing away across the river, hopefully to a safe spot.

Ravens

"So what are you up to on the weekend?" my work colleague asked me on Friday afternoon.

"Well, on Sunday afternoon we're going to drive about an hour south of us to Hastings Caves, where we'll get on a bus to take us deep into the southern forests at dusk, to listen to the sound of ravens coming in to roost for the night, then get back on the bus and come home again."

I realise how odd that sounds, unless you've been to anything that's part of the Dark Mofo festival before perhaps. This particular event is called Hrafn: Conversations with Odin, a sound installation by renowned sound artist Chris Watson whose works have been heard around the world and who has previously worked with Sir David Attenborough.

The installation is part of the $2 million Project X, designed to bring visitors to the Huon Valley to aid in recovery after the devastating bushfires early this year. The fires damaged much of the Tahune Airwalk, one of the region's main tourist attractions, and it's not expected to reopen until late 2019. The project has copped criticism, as it was always going to. But good things always do, and same old, same old isn't going to bring people here, when everyone loves the new and different. Hrafn is on from Thursday to Sunday next week as well, read more and get your tickets here.

Dinner at one of the Huon Valley's restaurants and cafes is part of the Hrafn experience. Last night we enjoyed a delicious meal of beef curry (David) and seafood chowder (me) sitting by the wood fire at The Bears Went Over The Mountain (or The Bears for short). We actually hadn't been in there since a stop for Devonshire tea during a holiday in Tasmania more than 10 years ago. It's been renovated to a larger, light and bright space with yummy scones and plenty more on offer. The Bears is licensed with a nice range of Tasmanian ciders, wines and soft drinks. Now we know, we'll go back for sure.

Fledgelings

Photo: David L. Moore

Each year, we track the progress and parenting success (or otherwise) of the beautiful pair of welcome swallows that nest under the back deck each year. This year our visitors are very efficient. They arrived early in the season and promptly started building a clay nest, lined with material including Bernese Mountain Dog hair and Huon Blue chook feathers. Today the first batch of three chicks reached the fledgeling stage and headed out of the nest, while their anxious parents swooped around and chirped loudly to warn us off. David managed to snap a few photos of all three babies with their typically wide mouths and scruffy new feathers, sitting in the sun on our garden furniture. Next comes the more difficult task of flying back into the nest! We love watching and listening to these beautiful little fellows. Never mind the pile of poop on the back deck.

Curious chooks

I heard the alarm cry of the plovers and rushed to the window to scan the sky, just in time to see the wedge tailed eagle fly past. By the time I reached the chook shed, all 14 of them were safely inside the yard so I shut them in. I thought I'd take the opportunity to get a few promotional photos of the four 16 week old cockerels, to see if I can find homes for any before they start crowing and create trouble in the hen house. But my shots were chook-bombed by curious hens and one loud rooster! They all came up to peer at me as I crouched to take a photo. Funny.

Roosters for raptors

Usually, if I have an unwanted rooster or two, I 'dispatch' them (as poultry folk say) myself. They end up in the freezer and get eaten at some point, by us or the dogs, depending on whether I can face rooster stew or curry after skinning and gutting them. But today I had four poor young cockerels who needed to go. They had started crowing and throwing their weight around and our existing rooster didn't like it much. Things were starting to get a little violent in the chook house.

Last year on a visit to the Raptor Refuge of Tasmania, we learned that they accept donations of unwanted live roosters, who are humanely euthanised and fed to birds in their care. I think it's a great idea. Anything to stop irresponsible chook owners from dumping them and help rehabilitation of these beautiful birds sounds good to me. Well, not good for the roosters clearly, but better than some other fates. You need to contact the refuge first to arrange a convenient time for drop off (in the box shown here) as they have limited resources, with staff and volunteers kept very busy caring for the animals.

Swooping around

This year, the welcome swallows have not built a nest under our deck, but they are swooping around the house a lot and collecting dog hairs and dry pieces of grass. They sometimes crash into the glass... and if the glass door is open, they fly right in! David has rescued three of them from our lounge and kitchen this week.

I am enjoying watching them from my desk as they've taken to perching between my new geranium planter boxes and preening themselves, making delightful chirping noises. Look closely and you'll see two of these gorgeous little fellows.

Rapt with raptors

This is Montgomery. He's a Tasmanian Masked Owl, and as I learned on our visit to the Raptor and Wildlife Refuge of Tasmania in Kettering last week, that's one of only two types of owl in Tasmania. Isn't he beautiful?

This amazing facility was set up by veterinary nurse and licensed wildlife carer Craig Webb with purpose built aviaries and volunteers who are working to rescue and rehabilitate Tasmanian raptors, like eagles, hawks, owls and falcons. When the birds can't be released due to their nature of their injuries, they get to live in the education area of the property and help people understand them better. Some have been hit by cars, some have collided with powerlines, others have been shot by morons. On our tour last week we saw swamp harriers, wedge-tailed eagles, brown goshawks (such a stunning bird, much more than the name suggests), southern boobook owls and brown falcons.

Cameras in the aviaries monitor the birds and allow the team to see injuries that the birds may hide when they see you coming. Through this camera footage, we saw a female sitting on two eggs and the male bringing her food. Awesome to see. I've had several chickens taken by grey goshawks over the years and I'm always torn about it. Sad for the loss of my hen, but happy that our beautiful wildlife is fed. We learned at the refuge that, for example, the lifespan of wedge-tailed eagles is not as long as it used to be due to challenges finding food - and, I guess, clearing of habitat.

You can book a private tour as we did via their web site. By appointment only. Go on - the money goes towards saving some of these wonderful birds. And while you are there, buy one of their beautiful calendars.

Return of the pardalote

Yesterday, the first daffodil popped open in the front paddock. Everywhere we walk there's the whirring of tiny wings in our ears, as flocks of fairy wrens tumble through the bushes and peck insects around our windows. Blossoms and buds are bursting on the fruit trees with the quince, the apricot and the peach leading the way. The rhubarb has emerged from winter dormancy. And most exciting, the pardalotes who nested in clay banks at our place last year have returned, lending flashes of yellow to the trees around the house. Welcome to spring!

Fairy wren snake alarm

Coming back from closing up the chook shed on Friday, I heard a little bird tweeting like crazy on the fence near the water tank. It was a fairy wren, with his bright blue feathers and pretty song. David had heard him too, and it turned out he had something to be chirping so furiously about. A dark shadow was hanging out near the water tank - snake alert! David fetched the hose and directed water at the snake until it slid out of the yard and off down the driveway.

I don't know if it was a tiger snake or a copperhead, and it wasn't a large snake, but I don't really care. I don't mind snakes but we don't want them close to the house or in our yard in case one of the dogs decides it looks interesting and gets bitten. We'll have to listen out for the fairy wren alarm in future. I was talking to a woman on the weekend whose family has lost a couple of dogs to snake bite, including a big St. Bernard... terribly sad. I've mentioned before that Tasmania only has three kinds of snakes, all of them venomous but very unlikely to kill you. It turns out that despite Australia's reputation for deadly critters, our snakes are a lot less dangerous than people think.

Baby birds

Hatching and fledging is in full swing in the valley. From the swallows nesting on our back deck, to the long-legged 'turbo chook' babies, to the puffball-on-sticks plover chicks, there are super-cute baby birds everywhere you look.

I had a few minutes to kill before yoga yesterday evening and walked down to the river. Mother duck and her brood of seven waddled right up to my feet. Aren't they adorable?

Balancing in 'tree pose' in the yoga studio, I glanced out the window to see a family of swans floating by on the Huon. They were still nearby after class.

It reminded me of the farewell song we sing in the Little Boat Choir:

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the starry sky
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the river flowing by

Until, until we meet again
May all your days be bright
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the river flowing by.

Birds on the nest

Two of my Barnevelder chooks have gone broody and have been sitting side-by-side on the nest since last week, looking very serious indeed.

This would be unremarkable for most hens, but it's the first time my Barnevelders have sat on eggs for more than a few days. They have been bred not to be broody... a trait that is for the most part good when you want chooks for eggs or meat. For many poultry keepers a broody hen is pest. But I'd love to have a batch of chicks that we have not had to incubate ourselves, so I am letting them sit. We have a huge oversupply of eggs at the moment anyway. However, I am not counting any chicks before they are hatched. The two Australorp girls in our little flock have both sat on eggs for a few days before giving up on the idea. If you are wondering what that hen is sitting behind, they are pipes underneath the sink in the luxury pickers hut that is our chook shed! The girls like to lay eggs under the kitchen sink.

Meanwhile, the first chicks this season from "our" welcome swallows have fledged, but still return at night to perch in the rafters on our balcony. Or, as they have done tonight, back in the nest, even though they are now too big to fit! They are so cute. The swallows showed up early this year, unlike last year, so we are hopeful they will have at least one more batch of chicks before summer is over.

Plover chicks

You'll have to look hard to spot them, but in this photo are FOUR tiny plover chicks (more accurately known as masked lapwings, but everyone seems to call them plovers) following their parents across our front paddock. This pair have been hanging around our place for at least three years and to date have been spectacularly unsuccessful at breeding - they kept laying their eggs in the dog yard around our house, which Gretchen found to be a tasty treat. But finally they moved into the neighbouring paddock and have produced these four adorable chicks. Here's hoping they all survive until adulthood.

Birdlife

This spring, many varieties of birds have been active around our house. The scarlet robin and his girlfriend have been flitting at the windows pecking insects. The welcome swallows are swooping and nesting. The fairy wrens are seen as a a flash of blue in the lawn (and in the dog bowls). There's an owl we can hear in the early morning and evening. The fan-tailed cuckoo (who we call 'turbo bird' as his plaintive trilling call sounds a little like a turbo engine whistle) sits on the fence calling for a mate. We've had several 'raven invasions'. And a wedge tailed eagle took the last chook that went missing... we didn't see it happen but our neighbour did as he drove past!

Yesterday morning David opened the blinds to find a green rosella sitting in the sun in the middle of our upstairs balcony. We think it had flown into the bedroom window and was concussed. We checked its wings, legs and eyes for injury but none was apparent. So we followed the wildlife rescue principles of 'warm, dark, quiet' and kept the bird in a box sitting on a hot water bottle in the bathroom for a few hours until he seemed feisty again, and let him go in the forest next to the house. Pretty fellow!

Pretty St Helens

Last Sunday I drove to St Helens on Tasmania's east coast to go to the Landcare Tasmania conference at the suggestion of a fellow Tasmanian Leaders Program participant. What a great bunch of people doing great things... inspirational, but more on that another time.

The coastal landscape and vegetation around St Helens is very different from the part of Tasmania I know. The beaches, sand dunes, heath and dry forests are home to a huge variety of bird life. Tiny native orchids were starting to appear among the many tiny wildflowers. On a field trip to St Helens Point conservation area we saw southern right whales thrashing around offshore. I enjoyed the drive there too, through the sheep-dotted fields of the Fingal Valley and down the narrow, winding St Marys Pass. I still haven't made it up to the famous Bay of Fires and Binalong Bay - hopefully next time.

Spring visitors

The welcome swallows have been recuperating after their long trip back to the Huon Valley, preening themselves in the sun and starting to rebuild their mud nest under our veranda. And this beautiful Scarlet Robin is catching insects and looking for love.

It was the yellow-tailed black cocktatoos

For some time we have wondered who has been stripping the bark from the felled eucalypt trees behind our house. Great chunks of it have been ripped off, exposing the wood beneath. Occasionally we would point a torch up there at night, hoping to catch a sneaky possum or other marsupial in action. Then today in broad daylight we spotted the culprits swooping in: a gang of beautiful yellow-tailed black cockatoos with their prehistoric screech. They are some of our favourite birds and plentiful around here.

They're back

"Our" welcome swallows eventually came back! After last year's unsuccessful breeding season, I wondered if we'd see them again. I love having them around. They are such pretty little birds, always swooping and chirping happily. They built a nest under the balcony, flying in day after day with mud and grass, and are now flying back and forth with food for the hatchlings. The photo below is a bit blurred, but you can clearly see the three mouths gaping.

Food delivery

Oktoberfest No. 1

This year, we're celebrating Oktoberfest twice. Yesterday the nice people from our car club hosted the annual Oktoberfest BBQ at the beautiful Waterworks Reserve in the foothills of Mount Wellington. If you're looking for somewhere near Hobart to hold a gathering, this place is great, as you can book one of the nine shelters that come complete with tables and gas or wood barbecues, so it doesn't matter much what the weather throws at you. The reserve is a lovely little piece of history. Cheeky kookaburras and ducks move in the second the grill is lit. Next weekend we're doing it all again, this time at home. Nice wheat beer, good sausages, sauerkraut and mustard... what's not to like?

 

Scarlet robins

In Autumn, quite a few of these lovely scarlet robins showed up at our place again. They comb the grass and my veggie beds for bugs and even fly up to peck our windows. They perch on any available stick or post and are so pretty to watch. David took these photos of them today with our new camera, which we're having fun playing around with at the moment. It was two degrees and snowing at the time - see the white streaks in the photo of the female (top) and ice on the table behind the male bird (bottom).