Frogmouths, mouse-ears and otter bums.

It was round about this time last year or maybe a bit later, that we got some new neighbours for a few weeks.  Can you see them?  Here is a closer shot!

It's a Tawny Frogmouth, and her two half-grown babies.  They are rather owl-like, but really they are a kind of Nightjar, like the Nighthawks and Whip-poor-wills of other continents.  They are nocturnal, and very good at hiding by day.  I only saw these guys because one of the babies moved his head side to side to see me better as I was going out the front gate.


Andyroo got these pics of one who spent the day here beside the cottage a couple of years ago.  As you can see he or she was pretending very hard to be a dead branch on the tree!

 "You can't see me, dammit!"

I hope we see some more Frogmouth families this year! I didn't this morning.  I was out for a little while with the local reserve friends group, digging up Watsonia.  They are pretty, but too intrusive in our local native bush. Poor things, their pretty pink and orange blooms give them away way too easily right now!

Isn't it amazing how wattles grow these perfect little pompoms of yellow flowers?   

The egg-and-bacon plants have had their showy flowering season in no time at all this year. I think early spring has caught them on the hop!

The Calothamnus Rupestra, known more commonly as Mouse-ears, are loving the warmth. I've never seen so many flowers on them.  I think they might be called Mouse-ears because of the little round, grey flower buds they have, that maybe look like mouse ears? Neither the flowers nor the leaves in any way resemble mice!
 

I have no idea what these two are called but they're pretty.

We've had to mow up at the block, which is a bit sad for my pair of feral dogs, who totally love hunting through the tall grass looking for mice and bunnies.  They've had some lovely chases to the fenceline, but the bunnies of course are much faster than my blonky Labradors, so they get through the fence and thumb their noses!  If the dogs find any mice, sad to say, they are munched up immediately!  Ah well, it's a quick end at least.

The feral hunters in the jungle:

Sorry babies, long grass is too attractive to snakes now they are waking up, and we don't want you bitten by a hidden slithery dude as you bound through the grass.  You'll have to wait for it to grow again next year!

The latest critter in my amigurumi stable is this little guy, a baby sea otter I made for one of my cousins. I won't link the pattern because he got so modified as I went along, that he no longer really resembles the pattern at all!  The consensus of opinion was that the chubby cheeks of the original made him appear to have a bum (or worse) on his face, so I took all the features off and redid him differently, and I must admit it was a vast improvement!  Ah, kind, helpful critics!  What would we creative types without them?  :D 

 

I won't be able to post much Amigurumi news here for a while. I've started on secret Christmas Prezzies!

I got this shot of the girls the other day, very politely waiting while I put their dinner together.  My sweet matching book ends.  :)

Gawd, some lucky fur-people have a great life don't they?