Just a short note to let visitors to the Blog know that I’m taking a break from the Blog until the weekend (28 May 2011). I’m just a little snowed under at the moment. Thanks – I’ll be back soon.
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Twenty20 World Cup
With Twenty20 cricket sweeping the world at the moment, the cricket world is all caught up with the world championship about to kick off in the West Indies. Who will win this time round – hopefully the West Indies 🙂
FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH
One of the things I’m really into is genealogy. I have been researching my family history for at least 10 years now, probably longer. This is something I spend quite a bit of time on and at the moment I probably spend at least 6 hours a week on it.
By the end of the year I am hoping to publish a book on my family history, which will be about 700-1000 pages long. It will be quite an effort to have it completed by then (that is the information I have thus far compiled), though the research will continue after the book is completed and there will undoubtedly by further updated editions down the track. It is exciting to know that there is a major milestone not too far away.
SWOOPING BIRDS
It was the official first day of Spring here in Australia. However, Spring has really been with us here for quite some weeks now, given the very warm days and bushfires we have already experienced. In fact August 2009 was the hottest on record.
Given that it is Spring it is time for a new season of new growth in the gardens and of new birth in the surrounding wildlife here in Tea Gardens (though it isn’t that clear cut obviously) and there is plenty of wildlife here.
On the way home from work today I was swooped by a Magpie – several times. The Magpie does this in its breeding season to drive off potential threats to its nest and young. Recently I have also been savagely swooped by the local plovers, which attack with even more ferocity than the Magpie.
The plovers had been defending their nest for some weeks prior to their eggs hatching. Their nest was beside the artificial lake in the centre of the village where I work at Tea Gardens Grange. The nest is just a small spot on the ground on which the eggs are laid. In this case their were four. They seemed to sit on the eggs for between 4 and 6 weeks before the young were hatched – swooping the entire time if you ventured too close, as well as making plenty of noise. One of the adults sometimes seemed to pretend to have a bad leg as it hobbled away from the nest in an attempt to get any threats to follow it.
At the moment there are two remaining chicks that are growing fairly rapidly now. The parents are still defending their young with menace.
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