The huntsman...

One of the more dangerous creatures we have here is the huntsman spider. Now they are not dangerous in the sense that they are poisonous, though they can give you a bit of a bite. They are dangerous for another reason, which I experienced personally the other day.

Now I am actually quite fond of huntsman spiders. They are rather large and move quickly and I have early memories of seeing the things on the wall of my bedroom. Most children would probably be scared, but I had a book of nursery rhymes, and in it Little Miss Muffet was being chased off by a very friendly looking spider. I guess so as not to give kids nightmares. So I have never been particularly worried by the things, and will go out of my way to put them outside if I find them in the house. They take care of cockroaches and other nasties anyway.

So the other day I'm driving home from work and I catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. I look up and there sticking out from the sun visor is a couple of large arachnid legs. Theres a huntsman behind the sun visor.

Now huntsmen like to crawl into narrow warm spaces and they seem to find sun visors pretty irresistible. So picture this situation. You are driving down the road and turn towards the setting sun, momentarily blinded. You reach up and fold down the visor and a giant spider drops into your lap and starts crawling over your leg. Worse if you are wearing shorts or a miniskirt. You panic and start flailing at the spider, and drive into oncoming traffic or a lamp post!



It happens. Now I was lucky that I was driving south and I wasn't about to use the sunvisor. So I had time to pull over to the side of the road and get the thing out of my face. But I can truly understand how you could panic in this situation, and why huntsmen are considered to be dangerous!

The midwinter swim

So, Saturday is the shortest day of the year. And how best to celebrate the winter solstice than to start the day with a dawn swim. Its a bit of a tradition worldwide, though usually practiced in places that are substantially colder in midwinter: like to the point of having ice around. In Finland, swimming in midwinter is standard practice, though usually done in conjunction with sauna. But I digress.

Doug Jones (aka Junior) has organized the swim. Doug is a very fit 76 yr old, retired policeman and AFL player. Sunrise is 6:35am, so a few hardy souls meet at Canoe Point ten minutes early. One minor problem: the tide is way out so there is no water. We have a short trek up the beach to where there is a bit of sand and sea water. We leap in just as the sun is peeking above the horizon. The water is surprisingly warm, it has been clear and light winds for a few days. We stay in long enough for the sun to get above the horizon and out to warm up and drink some coffee.

A winter dawn swim is a bit of an anomaly here (only halfminds seem to participate), though you can swim year around in the warmth of the day. But surprisingly the beach is deserted, even on weekends. Children are playing video games or going to the pictures.

And that probably explains why Australia now ranks number one in the world in obesity rates.

Sweetie Pie

My business partner arrives back from a meeting with a large box and announces that it is a pet for his kids and I have to deliver it because he is on his way out of town. We open the box and it contains a very hungry fledgling magpie. It had followed him around the parking lot and seemed pretty tame, so he brought it with him. "He followed me home, mummy, can we keep him...?"

We only had a bit of bread in the office, which didn't do much to appease the birds hunger. So I took it home to John's family who had been forewarned that it was on its way. On the way I picked up a selection of meat and other delectables. Birds here tend to be carnivores.

Anyway, we got it home and the kids were delighted. The bird even more so, it ate about half a pound of leftover KFC, ham, catfood and other goodies. However it had no idea about how to feed itself: you could put food in front of it and it would be ignored completely. It was very friendly and happy to sit on your arm or shoulder, so we e think it was probably a tame animal, raised from a chick that escaped from somewhere once it learned to fly.

We didn't have a proper cage, but there was a cat transporting box that looked like it would do the job. However the bird complained very vociferously when confined to the box. We let it out and it happily flew up and perched on the curtain rail.

Unfortunately the rail was too close to the wall for it to sit facing outwards, so it had to make do with facing the wall, like a child being punished. After a bit of stretching and preening, it perched on one leg, put its head under its wing and went to sleep.

So we hope that it will learn the basics of fending for itself and fly away soon. We will need to start it on grubs and worms and beetles pretty quickly: feeding them human food is not a good idea.

Japanese scientific whaling: the research program that does for marine biology what Unit 731 did for medical science!

Well its been over a year... lots going on.

But this is important. We had a humpback whale off of Quoin Island the other day. It came into Gladstone Harbor and cavorted around, apparently chasing mackerel. I missed the sight, but for everyone who saw it it was an amazing event.

Whales migrate up and down the coast here, and whale watching is a major source of tourism income. So now they are heading south to the Antarctic.

Which brings us to the annual Japanese "scientific" whale hunt. How the apologists for this have the nerve to say that this is "research" is utterly beyond me. It is a thinly disguised commercial whale hunt, intended only to keep the few remaining whaling vessels and whalers employed. At least our new government (thanks Kev and Peter) have the balls to call the japs out on this; Howard was a spineless little weasel who never took a stand on the issue.

So our politicians are starting to address the issue. But we can help. Write to the Japanese ambassador of your country and express your opinion.

Boycott Japanese products. Buy a Hyundai (I did). They are comparable quality and the Koreans (for all their strange eating habits) do not go around harpooning large, intelligent marine mammals in the name of scientific research. Don't buy your kids that new Playstation or Wii or whatever. (Actually don't buy an Xbox either, have them perhaps go outside and play, they will be less obese in later life...)

But this is only a start. Greenpeace had the brilliant inspiration of naming a whale to be tracked, and set up a site to vote on the name. Even more brilliantly, someone in the online community came up with the name "Mr Splashy Pants". I mean, you could probably get away with killing Humphrey or whatever other names, but Mr Splashy Pants? No.

We can go further though. We need to ridicule the idea that Japanese whaling is in any way scientific. And the way to do that is to call attention to some earlier Japanese "scientific research", and to link it indelibly in peoples minds with the present day scientific program.

So, let me introduce you to a prewar Japanese research program, Unit 731. Without going into the gory details (you can read about it in the Wikipedia article), it involved some pretty unpleasant experiments on live human beings. Suffice to say that the suffering inflicted on those involved at the time was probably comparable to that of the whales being harpooned in this present day scientific program. The Japanese were barbaric back then and they have clearly not changed much in the intervening years.

Anyway, gloves off. The new slogan:

Japanese scientific whaling: the research program that does for marine biology what Unit 731 did for medical science!


Spread it around.

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.