LIfe, death and in-between. Part 1. Life.

I've been absent for a while, its been one of those weeks. I am going to divide the week up into three parts and try and tell you about them today. The good, the bad and the ugly of life this week.

Life....the good.

One of the fabulous things about this house sit is the block of land we care for. It is an acre, many trees and shrubs and plants, heaps of birdlife and native life, secluded,( you can walk around in your knickers and no one can see you) and at this time of the year, nature is on the move.

Up the back of this block we have our 'little jungle'. Part of that little jungle is an ants nest. I mentioned the other day about flying ants leaving their nests, well that happened again the other day from the jungle. From the house where we watched, it was an amazing sight.

The 'little jungle' up the back.

 

Let me describe the back of this land. The house is built on a reasonably steep slope which climbs to be quite a highish hill right at the top. The sun rises over this hill, so although the sun might get up before 6am, it doesn't get into the houses easterly facing windows til nearer 8 am, although the sunshine slowly works its way over the hill and creeps towards us.

So, on this morning, the sun had done its daily chin up over the hill and the bright light was filtering through the trees. Through this filtered light we saw the flying ants coming from the nest and flying upwards. There was a whole cloud of them and with the light shining through their wings in movement, it looked like a cloud of moths, a sort of pale brown. They just lifted into the wind and slowly dispersed. Some of them wafted our way and we picked them up. They were small ants, black not brown and there must have been thousands of them.

The birds were on hand and one of the big lizards we have here, they were having a fabulous feed. The food chain in action is an amazing thing isn't it?

Another little gem in the springtime here are a family of Plovers. These are birds, they live in Australia and New Zealand, and possibly many other countries too. I think they are unusual in that they fly in the day and in the night. Often they will fly and call during the night hours.

Daddy Plover, who runs away to distract us if we get too close.


Well, we have mummy and daddy and about four babies on the front area of this block, and we have been watching them with fascination.

The parents are very protective and if we get very close, they will run away calling to distract us away from the babies. Usually one parent will try and get us away from the family and the other parent stays with the babies, all huddled into the ground.

You have to look closely, but one of the babies is just above and to the left of the mother bird.  Another is by the base of the pole. If we get too close they all run away so I can't get closer for a picture.


The grass is not too short where they are so they have a little ground cover and there is longer grass on the neighbours land close by giving them shelter too.

Well I finally got the pictures up for this post and will now do the next two....I have not been well and not at my computer much at all.