Whats eating the martins...

Some large bird has figured that there are tasty snacks to be found in the fairy martin nests. In the morning there will be a small pile of dirt and feathers on the ground and a large hole in the side of the nest. Magpies or crows I imagine.

Anyway, this doesn't seem to faze the martins. They simply rebuild the hole into a new entrance and carry on.

This would be functionally equivalent to a monster knocking its way through a wall of your house and devouring your children, and you then taking that as an opportunity to install a new picture window and deck for the nursery.















Then we have the magpie lark. A magpie lark is neither a magpie, or a lark. I guess whoever named it didnt have the imagination to come up with a new name, but decided that because this bird was colored like a magpie, and shaped like a lark, that magpie lark would be suitable. Well I suppose there are precedents. I mean a zebra fish is colored like a zebra and shaped like a fish. So there you go.

Anyway, we have a resident magpie-lark. It has discovered that we drop breadcrumbs when we have lunch, and turns up right on cue. In fact it doesn't wait for us to drop crumbs, but utters this piercing cry "Pee-wee" to tell us that the food service in this establishment leaves a lot to be desired. The colloquial name for this bird is peewee, and in fact the cry doesnt sound at all like this, more like the sort of shriek from one of the female victims in the latest slasher movie, but then a cat doesnt say "Purr" either.

Incidently, I also learned that the Australian magpie (as opposed to the magpie lark) is no relation at all to the European magpie, but just looks a bit like it. Clearly the settlers had no imagination. Could have been worse, we could have ended up with "zebra bird".

To the is-land

So the island house... getting there is by ferry, which lands you at the end of a sandspit. Once there, a four wheel drive vehicle is mandatory. Which is where an old Landrover comes in handy. Other vehicles have gotten stuck.


Once you are off the boat, drive along the sandspit...


and on to the island itsself..


The house is perched on the side of a hill overlooking the sea.

From the deck of the house there are sea views in all direction. The garden is planted out in bouganvillia, frangipani and hibiscus, as well as lots of palm trees.

The plovers have been more agressive than normal for the last day, and I know why. Two of the eggs have hatched, and the chicks are already up and moving about. The chicks are extremely well camoflaged, there are two in the picture, one in the nest, but can you find the second one?

As we were eating lunch we could see the bird on the nest eating something as well. This must have been the eggshells, because there is no sign of shell remnants at all.

Once the remaining eggs are hatched, the chicks leave the nest but dont go far; they stay in the neighborhood.

Plover lover

More signs of spring, the spur wing plovers are back nesting. For the last couple of years, they have been returning to the same spot in the corner of the parking lot. Not the ideal situation I would have thought, but they seem to manage.

The nest is little more than a hole scraped in the gravel, but they seem to like the spot. There are a couple of olive green, brown speckled eggs

The birds get very aggressive if you get too close and dive bomb you.

The real question is how you pronounce "plover". It turns out others have had the same question, the answer is that it can be pronounced either like clover or lover.




As in "I am a plover lover, so when I see a plover in clover, I don't know what to say"

One of the earliest computer games I played was called "Adventure". You travelled through a colossal cave solving puzzles and looking for treasures. One of the the treasures was described as follows:

"There is an emerald here, the size of a plovers' egg."

Well here are plovers eggs.

birdnests

So construction proceeds on the martins' nests, which are starting to look pretty wierd. They start as a layer of mud built out from the light fitting and initially looks like a bowl, but sealed against the roof above. But then they start to close in the end....until the thing looks more like a bottle. The opening is just wide enough for the birds to fit through.

Right on sunset, we got a shower, and a rainbow. Or rather a double rainbow, extending from horizon to horizon. You can see the second halo and clearly make out the colors in reverse order.

Spring has sprung..

... the grass has riz, I wonder where the birdies is...

A busy week not making alumina. Long story. But spring must be near, because the fairy martins are back and building their nests. Fairy Martins are a species of swallow. They build mud nests right outside my office window, on the light fittings under the deck cover. In the wild they build on the sides of banks and overhanging cliffs; they presumably recognize that overhangs provide an additional level of security. Or perhaps they like the fact that the light is on all night and attacts insects.

The nests are wierd tubular structures like something out of Alien, I will post more pictures as the construction progresses. Anyway there is an annual battle between the building maintenance and the martins. Each year, the old nests get waterblasted, and each year new nests get built.

About half a dozen managed to find their way into the building where I work, through the open roller doors. They then spent the entire afternoon flying back and forth under the roof looking for a way out. Not too bright, or maybe just confused by the skylights in the roof. Round about sunset I opened all the roller doors wide open, and turned off all the lights in the building, and they finally figured which way was out and departed.

The place I work has plenty of birdlife. There is even a family of spur-winged plovers that nest every year in the corner of the parking lot outside the building. They were checking out the nest site again the other day.

The neigborhood

OK, so here is Tannum Sands, courtesy of Google Earth. The obvious question is "what the heck that big red thing in the corner there". From the air it looks a bit like a giant pimple or a miniature version of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

This feature is about 3.5km long and 2.5km wide, and occupies considerably more area than the towns of Tannum Sands and Boyne Island (just across the river) put together. It is technically known as the Red Mud Dam and is a waste site for the local refinery. Did I mention bauxite earlier? Well red mud is what is left over when alumina (the raw material for making alumin(i)um) is extracted from bauxite. There isnt much call for red mud (at least noone has figured out any real use for it) so it just gets dumped in a giant hole in the ground.

There is a new refinery here and they are much more environmentally aware. They don't have a red mud dam. Instead they have an RMA, or Resource Management Area. This is actually just like a red mud dam, except it is located in a valley in the hills and has only a couple of years accumulation of resource, so it is hardly visible from the air. If anyone ever figures out a use for red mud, there are fortunes to be made.

Anyway, the river in the middle is the Boyne River, and off to the right is Wild Cattle Island National Park, five miles of deserted white sand beach, separated from the mainland by Wild Cattle Creek. At low tide you can wade across from the main Tannum Beach, and then you pretty much have the place to yourself. Walking the length of the island you may run into one or two other people. A good place to escape to for a day. Just be sure the tide is still incoming when you want to get back, otherwise you run the risk of being swept out to sea.

Definitely the last post today

I am now fielding complaints from the SPCA and there is a bunch of trade unionists and domestic workers picketing my house. Besides, the ratings have fallen dramatically, so we have made a decision to return to the world of dangerous animals and tell you all about snakes, spiders and saltwater crocodiles.
Stay tuned.

The increasingly inaptly named Day 1

After numerous complaints from the Gladstone Area Tourist Board regarding the content of this blog, and how it was causing a dramatic drop in visitor numbers to the area, I have reluctantly decided to give up on writing about dangerous marine life and return to the family friendly, subject of kangaroos.

These friendly and cute creatures stand guard over the neighborhood (see day 1), keep the lawns mown and are even employed as domestic servants to perform light housekeeping duties such as laundry and dishwashing.

Day 1 (and more)

But you arent reading this because you are interested in marsupials, "what about the beach" you say. And what about large fish with sharp teeth? Kangaroos are cute but there are things in the water that eat people. After all Steven Spielberg didnt make a fortune with a movie entitled "Pouch" about the antics of a giant killer marsupial terrorizing a small beachfront town.

Yes, we do have a lot of Selachimorpha in the area. In order to keep them away from the beach there are baited lines set out just off shore. Now whether this is a good idea or not; the jury is still out, since the baits may actually *attract* Carcharhiniformes to the area. Rather like those UV bug traps that bring insects from miles around. But noone I know has been taken by one and I dont let the thought that they are there worry me.

In case you havent figured it out we are talking about sharks. Anyway there are much more worrying things in the water. Like box jellyfish, irukanji and stonefish. Box jellyfish are known locally as "stingers". (That would be functionally equivalent to calling lions and grizzly bears "biters".) And they are a good reason to wear panty hose while in the water during summer months. Gladstone is at southern end of the stinger range and they are rarely seen, especially on the open beaches, they tend to live in estuaries and sheltered waters.

Day 1 (more).

So... ramblins from the beach. Anyway, we really do have kangaroos running wild in the street here. My American (and even some Australian) friends occasionally express disbelief of this fact, but it is true. There is a flock (herd, pride, memo to self, what is the collective noun for 'roos) living right on my doorstep.

I just googled for "collective noun kangaroo" and got "troop or mob". I think that is a little unfair. "Troop" has connotations of military activity, and these animals are pretty sedate and tame, impossible to imagine them indulging in such things. You do occasionally see a couple of big males indulging in a bit of standup boxing, presumably over some female, but then you just need to wander downtown on a friday night and you will see the same sort of thing going on.


"Mob" has even more negative and ugly connotations. "An unruly mob decended on the town center looting and pillaging...". The roos do a bit of looting and pillaging, mostly in gardens, but their preferences seem to run much more to keeping lawns neatly trimmed.

Day 1.

Tannum Sands is a small beachfront town in Central Queensland, Australia. Like most Aussi towns it has a pub and like most aussi beachfront towns it has a surf club. And it really does have kangaroos running wild in the street.

The beaches are nice, if not spectacular. Tannum Sands lies in the shelter of the Great Barrier Reef which *is* spectacular. But being sheltered by the reef means that there isnt much surf, so this isnt the Gold or Sunshine coasts, which have miles of really great beaches. But then their beaches are backed by miles of high rise apartment buildings and ugly suburban development.

The nearest surf beach is about 100km south, a place called Agnes Water, which is going the way of the rest of the country and falling to residential development. The Tannum Sands beaches are backed by a few houses, park reserves, and casurina trees, and in most places you wouldnt know there was a town back there. I like it that way.

Not that this is total paradise. Just a few miles north (and clearly visible especially at night when it is lit up) is the worlds biggest bauxite refinery. The Gladstone region, where Tannum Sands is located, is pretty industrial. (But then Australia as a whole is little more than a strip mine with a beach around it.) And the reef is a center for tourist activities. There is a bit of farming (sugar cane and beef) nearby. In fact the slogan for the Rockhampton region is "from Ranch to Reef". (I thought "from Cattle to Atoll" had more of a rhyme to it...) The main street of Rockhampton an hour north of here (and the nearest big town) is decorated by life size, anatomically correct statues of bullocks.

So heres the setting... nice beach town, major industrial area, coral atolls and other tourist attractions nearby. Life here revolves around water and work: fishing, boating, diving, and producing about six million tons of alumina every year.