The circle of life.

The weather is not nice, showers coming and going and heavy rain forecast over the next few days. One of the good features of our current home sit is that it has a very effective fire place.

When we first moved to Queensland, we considered the winters to be very warm, and when we would visit friends homes and see a fireplace, we would be amazed that anyone living in the 'tropics' would ever have a fire, even in the winter. Well, we have acclimatised now, and we get just as cold as the locals, and as our house is just at the foot of Mount Tamborine, we are a bit above sea level and we feel the cold at night. So we have fires.

On the fence line there are a few well established pine trees and from time to time we go down and collect some cones using them as kindling. The last time we got some was about two weeks ago, but there has been a bit of wind and more have fallen. Today I picked up a few more and there must be a change in the season, because this is the first time I have seen them sprouting like this. The green shoots are fresh growth.

 Many of them have what looks like pine needles sprouting and one or two have green tips coming from the cone and actually sticking into the soil. You can see the sprout on the top right of this cone.

I am no expert on pine cones, although I must say the design and they way the seeds are all layered is just amazing. But I was surprised to find I had to actually tug at this cone to get the sprout out of the grass. I guess it is the time of the year, but it was something I had never seen before. Life goes on.

On the other hand, life comes to an end. In almost every house we have lived in here in Australia we have had problems with birds flying into the windows. Not every day of course, but from time to time there is a bang as a bird hits the glass, sometimes gently and sometimes with significant force. I think it is something to do with reflections in the windows, where trees are reflected and the birds think it is safe to fly through. In one house, there was a bedroom window that was often flown into by birds.

Today Peter found one of the pied butcher birds outside the back door. I don't know if it is the one that usually comes to me for bread each day or not. Over the next couple of days, if he doesn't come back I will assume it was my bird. He was lying on the grass close to the house, so although we didn't hear any bang we assume he hit one of the windows.

Such a beautiful little bird. I'll really miss him.