Winmalee

 Cuckoos

They've arrived in Winmalee!  I have heard the first Cuckoo of the season, coinciding with the clocks going forward for daylight saving.

These migratory birds capture my imagination as they seem to herald Summer and the long hot days that lie ahead.  As I went to bed on Sunday night I heard the strident wailing love-call of a Cuckoo piercing the stillness of the night sky as he claimed his territory and sought to summon a mate.

They migrate all the way from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and, after mating, the female lays her eggs in the nest of a surrogate bird, generally a Currawong or Magpie.  The large chicks monopolise the poor foster parents, demanding all the available food and edging the other chicks out of the nest.

Channel-billed Cuckoo - Scythrops novaehollandiae.

I have not seen very many Cuckoos   I only ever seem to hear them!  They are as much the sound of the Australian bush as the Magpies and Whip birds.

This picture (right) is taken from The Australian Museum website.  See link  here

 

They like to eat native fruits and figs and sometimes insects.

This photo (left) is of a Channel-billed Cuckoo in a fig tree in Toowong, Queensland taken by Mick McKean.

Photo (right) of a Channel-billed Cuckoo taken by Keith Hutton.

They are noisy birds, but quite shy, often heard but not seen.  They like to sit in the top of tall trees.

We have many tall trees in our backyard, so I shall be trying to catch one this Summer with the zoom on my camera!

This is a photo I took of a Cuckoo in a tree in our backyard in Winmalee in October, 2018.  I do not think it is a Channel-billed Cuckoo.   I posted the picture on instagram and one of my instagram friends identified it as a Koel, which is another name for a Cuckoo.  This could be a female Pacific Koel also known as the Eastern Koel.

They do not like the cold weather, which is why they migrate back North for the Winter.  The migration route is across the Torres Strait and from New Guinea they migrate across the nearby islands, as far as Timor and the Moluccas.  They travel individually, or in small groups.

They delegate the raising of their chicks to other birds, to do the work for them!  However, the female does hover around, ready to help feed her growing baby bird.

There are also Cuckoos in the Northern Hemisphere and they migrate to Africa during the European Summer.  There is a beautiful poem by William Wordsworth called To the Cuckoo which can be found  here 

Acknowledgments:

1.  The Australian Museum

2.  Backyard Buddies

3.  Wikipedia

4.  Read & Co. Books

Winmalee

A walk around my Spring garden

We have not been for any walks lately, so I thought I would take you on a walk around our Spring garden at our home in Winmalee.  We live in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales at an altitude of 370 metres and are 80 kilometres west of Sydney.  Winmalee is an Aboriginal word with the debatable meaning "in a northerly direction" and was officially named in 1972,  being previously known as North Springwood.  Residents at the time objected to the new name, but now it is loved and accepted by everyone.  It is in Dharug native country.

Here is the May bush blooming in a corner at the front of our house.  It has flowered well this year, thanks to our neighbour Ben, giving it a good prune with his electric saw a few months ago.  I like to keep it this height as, if it gets too tall, it blocks the view from the window.

Here is a close-up of the May flowers, with droplets of water on them after an early morning shower of rain.
Spiraea cantoniensis double white May bush, native to China and in the family Rosaceae.

The side Photinia hedge, now in full bloom and with red tips starting to shoot up the top.  This also has to be kept in check and pruned regularly.  Mike came and did it last April.
Photinia Red Robin has fiery red foliage and cream coloured flowers, very attractive to the bees!

Here is one side of the house with a little gate, looking down to the rainwater tank, which I use to water some of the garden.  Paul came recently and pruned back the Azalea bush underneath the bathroom window and also chopped down the Oleander bush outside the third bedroom window as it was getting too big and straggly.

The Diosma bushes in full bloom at the back of the house.  They are getting pruned by Terry tomorrow as they are getting too big and blocking my view of the back garden from my desk under the window.  He is also going to clear this garden.
Coleonema - pink diosma is native to South Africa.

The Leptospermum  "Cardwell" and white Azalea flowering on the left side fence.  

I planted the Leptospermum in March last year.  It is a rounded shrub with slender, slightly weeping branches, densely clothed in small narrow, grey-green scented leaves that smother the plant in Spring creating an outstanding display.

The Azaleas are all blooming magnificently.  The lawn was mowed by Mike two days ago and he is coming next week to poison the weeds that you can see in the foreground.  They got out of control during our wet winter and have popped up everywhere.

Another view of the Azaleas and behind them the Robyn Gordon Grevilleas which have been flowering all winter and frequented regularly by the Honeyeater birds.  I have seen Wattlebirds, Eastern Spinebills, Rainbow Lorikeets and Noisy Miners in there.  The bare branched tree is a Liquidambar, starting to sprout its new leaves.

 A close-up of one of our flowering Azalea bushes.  Unfortunately I did not keep a record of the names of the varieties of Azaleas we planted, so have no idea what they are.    I know we have Rose King out the front and that is ready to burst into flower very soon.  We also had Rose King at Auburn and it is one of my favourites.

Looking down the backyard.  There is a birdbath between two Magnolia bushes.  We have many birds that visit our birdbath and I love to photograph them, zooming in on them, with my camera, from the back deck.  There are white Azalea bushes in a garden around the Tibouchina tree.


Well I hope you have enjoyed our little walk around some of our garden.  We also have another Photinia hedge facing the street, but this and surrounding gardens, are in the process of being rejuvenated by Ky, so I have not shown a photo of this.  He is doing a good job, but at the moment he is busy with school work as he is preparing to sit for his final HSC exams so he's rather busy!

There is also a lot more to see down the back, but I will leave that for another occasion!

Winmalee

The Coramandel Circuit

We did a longer walk today around what we call the Coramandel Circuit.  It is a circle of streets off Hawkesbury Road and just a short distance from our home.  We cross the Road opposite our house and walk down to the turn off to Coramandel Avenue then turn into Turnbull Street down Robyn Street, into Linnet Street and back into Turnbull Street and Coramandel Avenue back to Hawkesbury Road. It took us about 50 minutes, with many stops to take photos and a short walk down Wren Place before we returned home.  Parts of this walk are not paved and proved to be hard on my feet due to the rough surface and many stones underfoot and some of the streets are steep. After all, we do live in the Mountains!

A little copse of Autumn trees on an unpaved area along Hawkesbury Road before reaching Coramandel Avenue.

I love this little laneway lined with trees shedding their Autumn leaves.  It leads to a group of four houses off Coramandel Avenue.  There is a gate, but I have never seen it shut.  I'm not sure whether it would be classified as a gated community.

A lovely touch of gold in this Autumn tree at No. 9 Wren Place.  The number on the gatepost was loose and swinging on a single nail!

A magnificent view of Bees Nest Hill.  Years ago we walked to the top of this hill where there is a magnificent view into the Grose Valley.  This Hill is accessed via the Blue Gum Swamp at the end of White Cross Road.

This Liquidambar Tree stands on our property and was a welcome sight as we neared home, at the end of our walk.

It was a great day for a walk.  Fine and sunny and not cold.  It felt more like a Spring day.

Winmalee

Tristania Way

To-day we did a short local walk to Tristania Way,  not far from our house.  We have decided we need to do more walking and so we are going to try and do a few short walks every week.  The weather today was fine, sunny and quite warm for late Autumn.  The red and gold colours of the Autumn leaves looked magnificent as we stepped into this little cul-de-sac off Hawkesbury Road.  It was quiet and peaceful in this hidden getaway, even though it is close to a busy Road.  We walked to the end and then back again to Hawkesbury Road.  Here are some photos and observations of our walk.

This row of trees, displaying their Autumn glory, greeted us as we started our walk into Tristania Way.  They were on a bend in the Road as it dipped down into a Valley.  Just before reaching this bend, we saw a Crimson Rosella flitting around high in the trees on our right-hand side.

These dogs were barking excitedly as we walked past their property.  I loved the spotted one.  He looked part Dalmatian.  The other one looked like a Border Collie.  They looked happy to see us, even though they were barking!

We noticed this big old Gum tree, as we continued down the road.  I liked the way the branches intertwined to form an interesting pattern.  It was on the bush side of the Road. The bush stretched down into a deep valley.

On our way back to Hawkesbury Road, we noticed this little tree covered in netting.  It was growing on the Council nature strip.  We assumed it was a fruiting citrus tree and must be good enough for the owners of the adjacent house to want to safeguard it from attacks from birds.  Hope they reap a good crop!

A little clump of Gazanias greeted us in a garden on Hawkesbury Road and on the corner with Tristania Way.  As it was a sunny day the flowers were fully opened.  They made me feel happy!

We then walked the short distance back to our home.

Winmalee

Mist in the Mountains

We woke up early on Sunday morning to see our backyard shrouded in mist.  The valley beyond was invisible and all our trees looked ghostly and mysterious as parts of trunks and branches were concealed in a thick blanket of fog.  The edges of trees and gardens were blurry and everything looked soft and grey and outlines fuzzy. The colour green, in the leaves and grass, was rather muted and the white Azaleas, flowering in the middle of the yard, can barely be seen.  Little droplets of water are dripping from the fronds of the tree fern.  Mountain mists are rather special and a reminder of our altitude, even here in the lower Mountains.  They were certainly not experienced by us when we were living in the suburbs of western Sydney.  By the time we left for Church, the mist had practically lifted!

Only the top half of our backyard is visible, while the lower
half is blanketed in mist.

A Cold Snap

Winmalee

The weather has changed and we're experiencing cold winter conditions.  The rain is very beneficial, but I am not enjoying the unseasonal cold weather.  I looked over my back fence and noticed one of our neighbours has smoke drifting out of his chimney.  There is light mist in the valley beyond and rain drizzle is falling.  The garden is loving it!

Looks like the combustion stove is going in this house!