It rained last night. Thunder, lightning, the works. Happily, however, by the time we emerged this morning for our first weekend in Australia, it had slowed to a fine mist and occasional drop. Save for the occasional break in the clouds and resultant warmth of the sun, it remained like that just about all day. Not that it mattered a jot to us because today we were committed to some serious painting. We drove to the new house which is about five minutes from where we are here in Ocean Beach Road, and set about applying second and third coats of white emulsion to the downstairs Walls of my daughter's new home. With a break for lunch we worked solidly until we headed off home in time to watch Wales clinically take Ireland apart. We then watched with sadness as England failed miserably, almost from the first whistle, to make any impact at all on a much more determined French side. I even wore my England shirt for that viewing. to no avail, alas!
Whilst at the house, I had a few minutes to stroll down the garden and peer over the back fence to the wetland that lies beyond. It is truly wild; a tangle of gum trees, bananas, Streletzias, vines, ferns, and all manner of other strange Aussie plants. There is standing water about twenty metres from the fence. Not a place you really want to go knowing that Australia is reknowned for its excess of nasty venomous creatures that could snuff out the life of any unwary Pom who dared to venture therein! The neighbours either side have lost small dogs to snakes over the last ten years so there is a real need for caution. Dogs will be dogs and are confrontational with snakes which is why they die! Common sense dictates that us more intelligent humans should not confront the occasional reptile that may pay your garden a visit, but rather just leave them be to go about their slithery business. The neighbours say that the best course of action is to keep that part of the garden neat and tidy and uncluttered so that snakes would not find it worth their while to hunt there. This will be my job sometime before I leave in December. But today I just stood and marvelled at the rich birdsong I could hear and, as is so often the case when one stands stock still for a few minutes, to realise that there's quite a lot going on. A raucous screech announced the presence of some sort of parrot about to appear and a moment later, a brilliant red and green rocket shot through the clearing and disappeared behind me. It was a gorgeous king parrot. Then I became aware of something moving at he water's edge. A large moorhen-like bird strutted around coming ever closer. It was a purple swamp hen or gallinule as we call them in Europe. It has a purple underside with brown and dark blue upper sides. Its beak is bright red and huge- very thick, starting at the top of its skull. Another one appeared and they pecked around coming quite close to me. At one point some high pitched warning calls were the pretext to a short but furious scrap with a much larger brush turkey who suddenly appeared from nowhere. The turkey exited stage left and was gone just as quickly as it had appeared leaving the swamp hens in command of their little clearing.
In the trees above there were lots of birds but nothing to get excited about; mainly noisy miners, lorikeets, cockatoos, little wattlebirds, magpie larks and at least one grey shrike-thrush. More interesting to me were the whip birds I could hear but not see and the many unidentified sounds which I have yet to learn.
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