The Early Birds

January 24th
Well, here's the answer. The mother (or father)  and baby that have been hanging around for some time have found a feast in the wet mulch. They toss it around and every now and then come up with a tasty morsel. I hope too many of them aren't worms. The baby seems to have finally learnt how to fend for itself instead of squawking for a feed.  It still looks around nervously if the parent leaves.

So at the end of the projectI I ask myself if doing it has made me more mindful of my surroundings and I think the answer is 'No'. It made me take photos of the things I noticed but I don't think I noticed more or questioned more.  Occasionally I looked up something so I could report it properly, but not nearly often enough. It has made me realise that I can be quite sloppy and not worry about it unduly.
I'm actually quite relieved that it's over.  I don't like to give up so I doggedly plodded through, but it has been quite time consuming.  I could have spent some of the time more usefully actually in the garden.
I may from time to time add something really interesting (to me). But apart from that, that's it.

Il pleut

January 23rd
It's a few days later in January than last year when I started but the weather is suddenly the same. It's been raining constantly for two days, not just summer thunderstorms in the afternoon. The rainclouds come and just sit there.  Fortunately it hasn't been raining much over the Wivenhoe dam catchment area so there probably won't be a big flood like last year. Hope not.  Some people are not back in their houses yet from last time.
However, it has been raining buckets here.  There's very little wind so I wondered what had caused these strange tufts and holes in the mulch.

Pepper

January22nd
The pepper plant not only survived, it thrived. When I first saw the fruits I checked back on the seed packet to be sure I hadn't planted chillies. It's actually at italian Capsicum del Torno which I'm guessing might mean horn.  It's certainly not a Bell Pepper.

Echidna

January 21st
If I can't see you, you can't see me!  The roadsigns in Tasmania don't show kangaroos and koalas. they show echidnas and wombats. We didn't manage to spot any wombats, probably because we were usually done with driving well before sunset. We saw this guy scurrying across the road, so we stopped for a better look and a photo op. At first he ignored us but eventually he decided we'd been looking too long so he started to curl up and burrow in.

Franklin River

January 20th
This is the famous last wild river in Tasmania. A very well coordinated and publicised protest managed to force the tassie government to back down on plans to dam it for hydro electric power.

Thistles

19th January
Some of the 'towns' in the Highland region have scottish names and clearly some of the early settlers came from there.  So, my question is; did they naturally choose locations that felt familiar to them or did they actually bring thistles with them to make themselves feel at home?

January  18th
Travelling across Tasmania we soon realized that it's a good idea to stop for coffee or petrol whenever you can. The next town on the map may only consist of two houses. In the same vein, if you think you might need a shop, go to the first one you see.  That may be it for hundreds of miles.  We stopped for coffee and a "break" in a tiny hamlet called Hamilton.  There wasn't much to do there so the hamletters had put their efforts into gorgous cottage gardens. They reminded me very much of England.