Blue Faced Honeyeaters

Blue Faced Honeyeaters

 

I was working in the garden the other day. I was mowing grass and  even above the sound of the mower,  I could hear this awful ruckus from the other end of the house.

As I came round the corner to see what was happening the noise became even louder.

In a tree I could make out a lot of commotion. Indian mynas and and blackbirds were screaming at something amongst the inner branches. As I arrived a pair of magpies joined in to join the fuss.

I put on my best school teacher's voice and called out "What's going on here?"

The mynas, blackbirds and magpies all flew off and sat on the electricity wires nearby. My school teacher voice still works, at least on birds. There they sat, quietly, fluffing up their feathers, and looking back with great interest.

Much of the noise continued. After some further peering between branches, I could make out a pair of young, blue faced honeyeaters.  For young birds, they could make a lot of noise.

With a rush of wings, another two honeyeaters flew off a higher branch in the tree, chasing away the birds still watching from the power lines.

This pair, whom I assumed to be the parents, then sat as the young ones continued with their noise making. They continued for a good ten minutes, before the parents got tired of the 'grizzling'. They flew back into  the tree, looped around a few times, gathered up the children and flew away.

Spiders

SPIDERS AND FLIES

In Kilmore we have had some beautifully mild days this week. The plentiful rain of spring and early summer has left plentiful growth in the forests and in the paddocks.

Kilmore and surrounds are a picture at the moment. As the weeks have progressed, the grass has turned a glowing gold colour, and despite the ever-present worry about fire, the paddocks and bush look beautiful.


I have walked many kilometres these last few days. There is  plenty to see; birds, flowers, new growth on trees, frogs, lizards, kangaroos, echidnas, ants, spiders and so much more.




















It is the spiders however, that seem to fill the landscape at the moment, not so many last week, but this week, they are everywhere.

 

I visited three areas of bush recently, Monument Hill in Kilmore, Goldie Reserve towards Lancefield and Mt Piper, to the South of Broadford. Each of these sites is within fifteen kilometres of the others and each was heavily colonized by these little spiders.

The webs are hung across every gap, between trees, along wire fences and stretching from the ground to the low branches of trees. The strands of web are very thick and quite strong. Some of the webs were so close to each other that they overlapped. The poor flies and moths must have a tough time avoiding them when out and about.

In the centre of each web is a brightly covered little spider. Each looks as though it has been painted with white cake icing from a piping gun.With six sharp and prominent spines,  identification is quite simple.

They are named, quite logically, Six-spined Spider. (Gasteracantha minax)