Munching monsters and A Thirsty Wallaby

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It’s getting quite warm now here in north Queensland! October is our mid-Autumn month but feels like summertime. Today we hit 33 deg C in the foothills, so I only managed a few chores in the garden today – watering, fertilising and trimming.

I started the day with an early morning walk and frightened the young Agile Wallaby that’s been coming into to drink from our pond every morning. It’s obviously worked out a source of water as the dry season marches on and taking advantage of the pond.

Later in the morning, while hosing the plants in my shade house garden, I did manage to drench a St. Andrew’s Cross Spider (Argiope keyserlingi). It then appeared to get busy using its legs to dry itself off! Remarkable sight.

My poor Spathiphyllum (Peace Plant) has been attacked by very, very hungry not-so-little Hawkmoth Caterpillars.

In the end I removed 10 of the little monsters from my potted plant and “re-located” them all. The Peace Plant will need a period of recovery which is annoying as it was just about to start flowering!!

As I was wandering around today I noticed

- two of my Caladiums that are planted in the ground are rising from their dormancy in the shade house garden

- my Trimezia martinicensis (Yellow Walking Iris) is starting to bloom again

- my Plumeria rubras are finally showing off new leaf growth and a couple of flower buds are appearing, after they had dropped all their leaves over the Autumn/Winter period.

Now for some sad news. As you may remember I was keeping watch over a mother Sunbird that had laid two eggs in her special nest. Unfortunately the first egg somehow smashed onto the ground, so we kept our fingers crossed for the second egg.

A few days ago, I heard some chirping coming from the nest and saw mother Sunbird fly in to feed her little one.

I couldn’t get close enough to take a decent photo of the little one but if you look closely at the blurred shot above, you might just see the little one with its mouth open.

Well sadly, I noticed that all the chirping and the flying in and out visits by the mother had stopped yesterday morning and Mother Sunbird has not returned to the nest since. Today I took down the nest from the clothesline and discovered the little one had died. I removed the nest completely as the mother has now definitely abandoned it.

On a brighter note, there have been so many butterflies fluttering around the garden spaces these last few weeks. It’s a sight I never tire of!

• 8 Oct, 2024
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