Today is a Gift

out the back window..a visitor

I love the view out my kitchen window..to the hills...
especially when I have a visitor...
this bird has been coming to visit....
almost every day....
one day he was just talking quietly to himself out there...
so lovely....actually I think he was intrigued by the green light on my camera every time I took a photo of him...(the red eye reduction)! We decided he must be a Pied Currawong.

Unfortunately he isn't as innocent as he looks...I think he might be responsible for the disappearance of some of the smaller species of birds around the place. I hope it isn't him that is causing a ruckus in the middle of the night...twice now I have awoken to very loud sqawks of a bird...very startling in the middle of the night!

The 'Currawong problem' is a case of a predator getting out of control. The population of Pied Currawongs, Strepera graculina, on the east coast of Australia is believed to have increased dramatically with the creation of this favourable habitat by humans. Pied Currawongs are voracious nest predators with a strong negative influence on smaller birds in some areas.

Pied Currawongs have a broad diet, eating insects, fruit and vertebrates, ranging from tiny skinks to adult Spotted Turtledoves. They thrive on berries of ornamental plants, some of which have become weeds in urban bushland: one regurgitated pellet from a Pied Currawong contained over 60 privet seeds. They also eat food scraps, petfood and will feed at bird feeding stations.

Pied Currawongs eat more vertebrate material during the spring breeding season than they do during autumn and winter, when berries are more widely available. Many other birds breed during the spring, so the nesting seasons of small birds and their Pied Currawong predators overlap. A pair of Pied Currawong may kill about 40 broods (up to two kilograms) of small birds to raise one brood of its own. (from the website Birds in Backyards...Australian museum 2006) It is also listed as on the Birds Behaving Badly List..among others such as the noisy minor, magpie, brush turkey, white ibis and sulphur crested cockatoo!

For more stories from around the world, please click on the My World button over in the sidebar....

What a shame ...I thought he looked so cute...and innocent!

some flowers

a few flowers from one of my morning walks this week...the red one on the left is from the poinciana...a great spreading tree...it is only in later life that I have realized and noticed the one odd white speckled leaf that it has!
and a trip to the hairdresser, and a small delay, led to my taking photos in the tiny little park there....


petunias and nasturtium....

the delicate little white flower above I know not the real name...the lady down the road used to call them Aunty Dot's weed! And certainly they look like they may grow prolifically in the right conditions!
some more of the daylilies...
lovely colors, and they remind me of my mother...she was very keen on daylilies...and had many lovely ones in her gardens towards the end of her life!


and these little pink and white pentas were quite lovely too!

bright cheerful little white daisies..and dipladenias...

Quite a cheerful little spot really...which is what you will find if you go and click on the Today's Flowers button...and look at all the flowers from contributors from around the world...

Ageless...the Brenda Photo Challenge......(for skywatch photos , please scroll down)

Childhood is Ageless...the world over.....
children do the same things from year to year....(especially little boys)...
running, jumping.....playing in the dirt....
looking down the drains....

playing in the puddles....
it never changes.....little inquisitive minds need to learn and jump and run and play in the dirt...and the puddles...and the leaves!

For more AGELESS photos in the Brenda Photo Challenge, just click on the Brenda Photo Challenge button in the sidebar....(from Saturday 21 Nov)

I would like to acknowledge my daughter and son in law's role in taking these photos..they are not my own! When I saw them I knew they would be perfect foor this challenge!