"Build-Up" Season and Kookaburra Crash

3 comments

It definitely feels like the “build-up” season these days. That’s what we call the period before the arrival of our wet season. The days are very hot and humid and there is light isolated and sporadic showers of rain. During “build-up” we usually experience thunderstorms, but that hasn’t happened just yet.

This morning started with a dreary grey sky and around mid-morning the garden was showered with a short-lived drizzle of rain.

Before the rain arrived, my hubby and I were sitting on the back verandah having a cuppa when a young Kookaburra flew at a rate of knots into the screen door next to us.

Can you spot the hole left after the bird slammed into our front screen door? The poor Kookaburra was obviously shocked but flew off before we could do anything to help.

The screen door now has a beak-sized hole.

During my wandering today, I noticed

- A land snail slithering along the pavers in my shadehouse. I see different looking land snails every now and then at my place. They are not in the least bit destructive and I rather enjoy spotting them out and about laying their silvery snail trail.

- My Combretum constrictum (commonly known as the Thailand Powderpuff) has risen from the dead and I’m seeing its spiky red flowers once more. The original plant died off about three years ago now and I thought that was that! But lo and behold, it’s sprung to life about 1 metre away from where the original shrub lived.

- The Calibrachoas continue to flower and I particularly love this one.

- I’ve finally spotted the yellow blooms on the Allamanda cathartica (known as the Yellow Allamanda) growing over one corner of the pergola. This poor climber lives in an extremely poor spot and sometimes I think it’s given up and gone to heaven, but it keeps on surviving. I don’t know how!

- My pink Ixora in one of the front garden beds is absolutely covered in blooms right now

and the butterflies, like the Orchard Swallowtail, are feasting on the nectar.

This is a male Papilio aegeus (Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly).

• 27 Nov, 2024
• 1 like

More blog posts by bushbernie