rural vibes – Page 2 – Lorikeet Lane

Save our frogs and toads

Posted on March 18, 2018April 2, 2018 by evie

save our frogs As you all know by now, we have a thing about frogs here. We feel so lucky living here because we are surrounded by the little croakers and we either hear them or see them most evenings. I know for sure we have 3 different varieties on the property though I have yet to ‘catalogue’ them.

Even as I write this, there is a solitary Striped Marsh Frog sending out his ‘tok’ call (imagine the sound a tennis ball makes against the racket) from his prime floating position in the water. For me, there is nothing more relaxing than being surrounded by such sounds.

I think I may also have explained how our family have always inadvertently become involved in ‘saving’ wildlife and animals. It was my brother who rescued a whole bucket load of frogs from the swamp in the woods where we lived in Scotland – before it was destroyed by diggers. These frogs and many generations of frogs have lived very happily at our old family home ever since.

If only we had my brother and his little bucket and spade now. Sadly, since moving into the property we have discovered that a controversial rail maintenance facility has been approved not too far (as the crow flies) from where the back of our property ends. It won’t impact us on an immediate level but as far as the community and environment are concerned this is a huge blow.

This project was approved despite the area being wetlands (and flood-prone) and despite the area being home to no less than 4 endangered species including a newly discovered ‘Mahoney Toadlet’. It’s so frustrating! This development is going ahead despite a more suitable location being found just a few kilometres up the road and despite the community investing $3000 in an independent environmental report to prove the rare froglet lives there. As if threatened or endangered species are not enough reason to rethink the location of the rail maintenance facility, there are Platypus in the area. I have lived in Australia 16 years now and I have still to catch sight of this elusive creature. The threat to a species is one thing – one very big thing – but the destruction of the only known habitat is quite another. No one is happy about this and understandably so – the whole thing is playing out like that iconic Aussie movie ‘The Castle’ … “it’s the vibe of the thing” (i.e, the whole thing stinks).

Luckily we have a retired ACT* Government employee in the family (with Environmental expertise) so last time we caught up I mentioned the situation to her, hoping she had some advice that would help us stop the whole thing in its tracks. After some discussion about what was at risk, my sister-in-law was able to point us in the right direction – just to be sure everything that should have been done was done to avert the potentially disastrous impact on the wildlife and supporting vegetation.

As she pointed out, the Impact Study highlights the two most vulnerable species are the recently discovered Mahony’s Toadlet and the nationally listed Wallum Froglet. Both are restricted in distribution to relatively small areas and require acidic swamp areas for breeding. The recovery plan and the listing under the National Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC )set out these conditions for Wallum’s Froglet. However, the more recently discovered Mahony’s Toadlet doesn’t appear to be listed under the national legislation at all – even though it seems to have a narrower area than the other and also requires the swamp habitat for breeding.

Mahoney Toadlet — Picture courtesy of Newcastle University

The swamp areas in the planned development are a key point to try to halt the development. Page 29 of the SIS talks about the vegetation/geography of the development area and while it does appear there is potential breeding habitat in the area, the type of development is likely to impact indirectly through pH changes and possible pollutant runoff.

Which begs the question, ‘Should the vegetation itself should perhaps be covered by a protection plan under the EPBC Act?’

So what to do? Well for my part (though late to the party) I have contacted the ‘Save Our Species’/Threatened Species at the NSW Government – Office of Environment & Heritage as well as the Environmental Compliance Government Department – just to ensure the due process has been followed. That’s just for starters. So let’s see what comes back

Useful related links:

https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/9f40ec86-f7c6-476a-9712-7676a2f43da6/files/wallum-frogs.pdf

https://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/wildlife/animals-az/wallum_froglet.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-04/rare-flasher-frog-discovered-near-newcastle/7993450

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=20325

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/communities/pubs/146-conservation-advice.pdf

*Australian Capital Territory

Down to the wire

Posted on January 25, 2018February 4, 2018 by evie

There are two projects we really must get a start on. One is suitable fencing for Angus and the other is to figure out what we’re going to do with the ramshackle chicken coop that seems to be held up by willpower alone. There is a tin shed wedged between the chicken coop and a slightly newer, though badly damaged metal shed. Beside this, there is an old bath filled with water, plants and green gunk. I figure just by knocking this all down we are going to significantly improve the value of the whole property – it’s so uncared for.

As far as the fencing goes, the perimeter fencing around the property seems pretty secure so it’s more a case of creating a fenced area where Angus can run freely without getting himself into too much mischief. To the right side of us, the neighbours have chickens, an alpaca and a dog, while the neighbours down the drive have a rather cantankerous German Shepherd (the one that doesn’t like people or other animals – or life in general by the sounds of it). I think our nearest neighbours on the left have just said goodbye to their own dog recently though of course, they may get another one soon. The next nearest neighbours have cattle and horses. This is pretty good news for us because aside from the property boundaries, our neighbours have made sure their respective animals/livestock can’t break out. All we have to do is designate an area for Angus where he can’t eat poisonous plants or do his own creative landscaping – and – when the time comes keep him from trying to herd the chickens too much.

After a quick measure up and a trip to good old Bunnings to price some options we think we’ve got a handle on what needs to be done … until I spied wood and various rolls of chicken wire in the chicken coop. This in itself sorted the priorities between the two projects.

The timing was good. I had spent a couple of weeks feeling very frustrated with my lack of progress in any of my writing/business projects. My motivation seemed to have melted in the searing heat and humidity of an NSW, Central Coast Summer. What better therapy than to get outside and get my hands dirty… hmm … did I mention the heat?

Still, when I decide to do something, I want to get on with it there and then. Patience is not my middle name. On with the big hats, thick gloves, hard boots –shade and ice drinks on standby. It was hot, dusty work, not to mention a bit scary, walking into the unknown in the deepest recess of the chicken coop. Either it was going to fall down around my ears or I was going to find something living in there. This was a job for my big girl pants (‘undies’ if you are in Australia). Thankfully none of our neighbours visited at that point.

The first step was to empty all the contents of the coup out onto the grass so we could see what was worth keeping and what was old/rotten. This in itself was a big job lugging lengths of wood and countless rusty star poles. Then the removal of glass from the roof!! I know glass – and surprise, surprise under a canopy of trees, a branch had fallen and broken the glass. In their wisdom, someone had laid a glass shower curtain across the chicken wire. The whole thing was a rigged, ready to go death trap.

Luckily for me, Mr P’s middle name is Patience, so he began the delicate operation of removing the glass ceiling!

It’s taken double the amount of time I expected, by the time we wrestled chicken wire from old wood, and rolled decent chicken wire up, threw out pots of white powder (probably bone meal – either that or we’ve just lost a fortune), random black stockings – which I hope were holding up plants – ashtrays and other odds and sods you find in a rickety old chicken coop.

To see the wobbly (yet stubborn) old wooden structure come crashing down was a joyous moment. There was suddenly a lightness, a brightness to that pocket of land that had been so dour and depressing before. I was beginning to get quite excited about knocking down the tin shed and taking my chances with the newer shed too.

It’s good to be on a roll – but it’s just the beginning.

Let the sunshine in!

Cicada Summer

Posted on December 28, 2017January 8, 2018 by evie

I can’t quite remember when the hellish noise started. Perhaps early December? It began innocently enough – the sound of summer – but then it rose to levels that were just, well, downright rude. If you’ve been in Sydney or the Central Coast you’ll know I’m referring to the Cicada.

To be quite blunt – I’m so over the noisy f*@^&rs – I mean do you really have to start that racket at 5.00am and then build in crescendo as the day gets hotter and hotter and more and more oppressive? Apparently yes – that’s their modus operandi.

Temperature appears to be an important factor in the racket – I mean the cicada call. I have read that the noise ceases if the temperature falls below 15 degrees — unfortunately that isn’t going to happen in an Australian summer – day or night.

Apparently only the males call and it is primarily to attract a mate. Thank goodness the other half of the population don’t join in.

There are many species of Cicadas – probably around 700 across Australia. Here on the Central Coast there are about 35 different species. Each one has its own distinctive call which is produced by vibrating a pair of ribbed membranes at the base of the abdomen.

I guess they are quite cool to look at with their big bug eyes in reds, blacks and greens and oranges. Their wings are actually a work of art – Art Deco in style and so elegant like dragonfly wings. It’s just a pity they are so unsociably noisy.

If you have never heard a wave of Cicadas try to imagine white noise emanating from the trees and the air all around you – like static from the radio or TV but amplified to the point it makes your eardrums twinge – and make it last all day! To add insult to injury the little blighters excrete the sap they drink from trees and you think – ah blessed relief it’s raining. No just a cicada pee shower!

The racket makes it impossible to sit outside to enjoy the sunsets. Your ears are bleeding by the time you pop the cork and offer up a couple of glasses. Conversation is out the window unless you’re comfortable saying ‘what’s that?’ about ten times a minute.

The racket started at a point when we were trying to introduce the back Deck to Angus as a possible hang out place for him during the summer days (under shade and adjoining the back office and bedrooms). However, given pups have such sensitive ears – and Angus’s being larger and more sensitive than most – it was never going to work. He was pained by the whole experience so we gave up on that ‘socialisation’ experiment. We’re still waiting weeks later for the nightmare to end.

We began to wonder if we had made a huge mistake in buying in this area surrounded by trees, but a neighbour has reliably informed me that the last time it was this bad was 10 years ago. That ties in with reports that this year was a bumper season for Cicadas – so I’ll be monitoring the situation closely next year. I’ll get back to you on that one.

Australian brush turkey hatchling

Posted on November 2, 2017November 11, 2017 by evie

It’s probably hard to see in this picture but if you zoom to the centre you’ll see a wide-eyed little chick with brown fluffy tufts on her head and a useful looking beak. I say ‘little chick’, she’s fairly large by ‘chick’ standards. I discovered her yesterday foraging for food amongst the leaves in our backyard. After some research, I discovered she was an Australian brush turkey hatchling. We’ve been away for 2 weeks so she may have hatched while we were away. We had heard something rustling around in the leaves before and wondered if it was our resident Blue Tongue Lizard (we’ve since named him Russel as the rustling of leaves always signals his appearance) but perhaps it was this little cutie, or it’s mother looking for a suitable mound for her eggs.

There are many people who don’t like Brush turkeys. They do tend to tear up the garden on their hunt for food and I have heard that in the absence of a female the male will single out your black chickens for some special attention, but they are native to Australia and I’m happy to let her be. The odds are stacked against her as it is with snakes and a Guana (though we’ve still to spot him) on the property.

Brush turkey chicks look similar to quails, with plain rich brown feathers over their entire bodies. As they mature they lose the feathers on their heads and necks, where the bare skin turns a deep pink colour. It’s at this point they take on that turkey look and become less ‘cute’. In fact, they are quite ugly as adults but hey that’s life for most of us.

So I turned to trusty McGoogle to do some research and as I read about their breeding habits I couldn’t help but feel a bit of respect for the female bird.

Using vegetation gathered from the forest floor around them, male brush turkeys build a large and distinctive ‘incubation mound’, which can be up to 4 m wide and up to 2 m high. I have to confess if there was a such a mound on the property I would have missed it as it is all a tad overgrown at this stage. A female will then lay 18-24 white eggs in the mound, with intervals of two to three days between the laying of each egg.

Female brush turkeys ‘shop around’ before adopting a mound to lay their eggs in. They assess the quality of the mound since it reflects the quality (attentiveness and experience) of the male who made it. How sensible is that? A good quality mound will have several females laying in it, while poorer quality mounds may have only one or no females laying. Females may also lay in more than one mound each season to spread the risk. (Take note men out there – you have it easy.)

As the vegetation in the mound decomposes, it gives off heat which warms the eggs. The optimum incubation temperature is 33-35°C which the male brush turkey maintains by removing and adding layers to the mound. Apparently temperature regulation is the only assistance the parents provide to their offspring. The young brush turkeys hatch after about seven weeks, amazingly fully feathered and able to run. They dig their way through the layers of the mound and into the open air. After that, they are totally on their own which is why I’m probably feeling protective of our little hatchling.

If I see her again I may give her a name. She looks like a Matilda to me.

Praying for rain

Posted on October 21, 2017November 21, 2017 by evie

There are so many new things to learn when you move onto a rural or semi-rural property. I realised very early on I was going to have to take a keen interest in everything that had to be done around the place and not just leave it to Mr P.

Peter often works away so I want to be in a position to handle any eventuality if he’s not around. It’s a chance for me to reclaim some of the independence I’ve surrendered at times (Peter is such a gentleman and is adamant about the fact he should take the bins out (for example) and not me. He forgets as a single parent you have to do all the jobs around the house so I do feel embarrassed as if I’m not doing my bit if I leave it all to him). That said, I’m not looking forward to having to go outside in the dead of night with a torch to see why the water pump has stopped working.

We have water tanks (meaning we use rainwater rather than the main water supply). Of course, that can pose a problem when it hasn’t rained for weeks on end, but we have two tanks plus an overflow tank which we use to water the garden. The water tanks have filters which need to be replaced periodically to ensure none of the crap (quite literally) on the roof (I’m thinking cockatoos and possums for starters) or leaves gets into your water system.

For all of you living in Scotland or Norway, the very idea of running out of water would be laughable but here in Australia water is a premium so we have to conserve where possible. During the first few weeks of living here, we had no rain whatsoever and I found myself actually praying for rain – not just for our tanks but for our plants and fruit trees. Wow – I told you there were new things abound – have you ever heard of a Scottish girl praying for rain?

I had to re-educate myself on my own water usage … turn the tap off when you brush your teeth, keep showers quick (4 minutes or less) and only use the eco/flow restrictor setting on the shower head, in fact turn the shower off while you are shampooing – oh – and only really flush the toilet when you need to (if you know what I mean) – unless you have a dual-flush cistern. There are other considerations but I won’t bore you with those now. Suffice to say you just have to ‘think’ about your water usage a bit more when you’re living off nature’s own supply – and that’s no bad thing in a place like Australia.

We also use a septic system for our sewage. Now to begin with I think I thought ‘eeew sewage –ugh’, but again it’s just a case of understanding what you’re getting into (so to speak). On a practical level it just means you have to be careful what you pour down the sink or flush down the toilet as harsh chemicals will upset the bacterial balance of the system (the bacteria that’s required to break down the waste) and solid materials or non-biodegradable materials will clog the system – and you definitely don’t want that. Other than that I never even think about the sewage so don’t be put off if you are considering a move to a more rural location.

The benefits of living this way are many, though just on the most basic level you are forced to be much more environmentally aware, from conserving water to using only natural products in your home. As someone who has never experienced such things, it’s been an easy transition and no hardship or inconvenience at all – so far!

As I write this, the weatherman has been predicting rain for the past three days – nothing yet. Time to get my rain dance happening!

Well hello neighbouroonies

Posted on October 18, 2017February 13, 2018 by evie

When we first moved in to Lorikeet Lane we met two out of four of our immediate neighbours – one of whom was Scottish. Hurra, I thought. Someone to have a glass of wine with or a cup of tea. It’s always so refreshing hearing the Scottish accent when you’re away, and you feel an immediate bond in the ‘life away from family and friends in this strange foreign land’ sort of way.

The initial meeting with both neighbours had been pleasant enough, but since we’d been away a lot, I hadn’t really got the chance to build on that beyond a quick wave or hello. So today I decided, after taking Angus on a little scout around, to pop in and say hello. I thought it would be nice to invite said ‘Scottish’ neighbour up to the house for tea and chat. I also thought (since I’d heard a dog) it would be a great way to socialise Angus – meet some nice Scottish people and possibly a doggy friend close by.

I rang the doorbell and waited. Crazy dog barking ensued. A new face came to the door. I hadn’t met the daughter. She crept out of the house and closed the door behind her and was speaking in hushed tones. Oh, I thought, obviously someone sleeping or not well – or something.

“Sorry, did I call at a bad time? I ask nervously.

“No, no … you must be Evie,” she said.

I took this as a positive sign that her mother must have mentioned me and I began chatting away. She was totally enamoured with little Angus who didn’t know whether to jump and lick her face all over or wag his tail until it fell off. The barking behind the closed door ramped up as if the unseen dog knew just what her young owner was up to behind the closed door – betraying her.

“I’m sorry about Molly,” she says. “She’s 9 years old and she’s nuts. She hates everybody and she hates other dogs”, she says eying Angus with gentle concern. “She’s an ex-police dog so .. you know…”

“Oh!” I’m beginning to realise Angus isn’t going to make his first friend here today. It was ticking through my brain that ex-police dogs would be pretty well behaved and used to people. Perhaps this police dog witnessed something so damaging he had to be kept separate from the whole of humanity… who could say. Maybe he was just old and crotchety like we all get. Fair enough. I barge on. “Well I was really just popping in to say you are most welcome to come up for a coffee or a glass of wine if you like – I was going to ask your mum…”

I wasn’t prepared for the cloud that fell across her face … “oh,” she said …”I’ll just get my mum … but I don’t think … anyway, hold on.” I stood with Angus at the front. He wasn’t picking up on the signs that maybe we weren’t as welcome here as I’d first hoped. His tail was still wagging furiously.

After much discussion behind the closed door, mum appeared looking wiping hands on a dishcloth. It put me in mind of my childhood for some reason.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I’ve obviously come at a bad time. I only came to ask if you fancied coming up for a tea or a glass of wine some time – I mean not today if you’re busy but any other time – feel free.”

“No. We don’t do that sort of thing. We’re not social. But thanks for the offer.”

“Oh…OK,” I stand blinking, unsure what to do next.

That’s when she spotted Angus and turned into a different person. “Oh but I love you…” she said bending down to greet Angus. “I love you.” This was followed by many cuddles and much smooching. Angus was beside himself with joy.”

I felt the words just blether over without a filter. “Oh well. No problem. I just thought since we were both Scottish … oh I don’t know. Anyway, the offer still stands if you change your mind.” (I thought because we were Scottish??? hmm I’ll need to work on my ‘making friends routine.’)

I take my pup and go. I’m somewhat surprised that someone has kindly but gently pushed away the hand of friendship – but hey some people aren’t sociable I guess. Maybe that’s why she’s living on a property away from the rest of the human race. She doesn’t want to be bothered about the niceties with people like me- and neither does her dog. I don’t really blame either of them.

Angus is oblivious – he’s not the one that’s been rejected. He trots down the path with his nose glued to the ground. He seems to be on the scent of a skink or a duck perhaps. I can’t be too upset with the Scottish woman. After all, she loved my little ferocious pup so that makes her alright in my book.

As we walk to the bottom of the path, I can see our other neighbour has moved the cows to the paddock opposite. I soon forget about the Scottish woman. The two calves I’ve been watching from a farther paddock for the last few weeks are right in front of us and I’m excited to meet them and introduce Angus.

We exchanged some meaningful pleasantries and Angus joined in in his usual enthusiastic manner. The calves humoured us for a few moments as their mother looked on, before nonchalantly sauntering off in the direction of some shade.

In chatting with the calves, we’ve come to the conclusion Mrs Scottish lady and her daughter (who also sounds Scottish) is probably in a witness protection program or at the very least just has a very jealous dog – perhaps husband. Probably much more creative and more exciting than the truth. Ah well, who needs people when you are surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature and the company of a loving pup.