Adding to yesterday’s observations, today I noticed some cherry blossom trees in full bloom, with bees lazily collecting nectar. Spring definitely felt in the air as we got up to 21°C today, and tomorrow should be even warmer. It was lovely being out and about.
I took Scully for a drive to Allambie at lunch time, where I got pies for lunch. It’s a bit of a drive, but they’re the best combination of excellent pies and reasonable distance. And it has the advantage of being very close to a playing field where Scully can run around and get some exercise. It’s a soccer/rugby field and often very muddy after rain, but it’s been sunny for the past two weeks and the ground was nice and dry today.
Today marked the 14th day in a row where it hasn’t rained! It’s been so lovely not having any rain. It’s a constant refrain among people I meet on the street while out walking Scully: “Thank goodness for this lovely weather and no rain.” “It’s so nice that it hasn’t been raining.” “It’s good to get some sunny days in a row.” You can really tell we’ve had a ridiculous amount of rain in the first part of the year by how many people are super happy and excited by the fact that it hasn’t rained for several days.
And an amazing thing happened this morning. I was just pottering around and heard an awful raucous screeching outside, which at first I thought was a sulphur-crested cockatoo, and then as it continued in a distressed manner I thought it might have been a cockatoo that had been caught by a cat or something. I raced to the window to see what I could, and realised it was indeed a cockatoo, but not a white sulphur-crested one… it was a yellow-tailed black cockatoo! And not just one, but three of them! Feeding in a banksia tree right outside my living room window.
This is a rare species in this area, so close to the middle of the city. I’ve only ever seen them around here once before, in 2017. I raced to get my SLR camera and take some photos, but when I pulled it out the battery was dead, and the spare battery was dead too! So I quickly put one in a charger and hoped the cockatoos would stay there long enough for the battery charge up a bit.
The cockatoo making all the noise—and it was an almost continuous screeching, over and over and over without interruption—must have been a newly fledged juvenile, begging its parents (the other two) for food. I watched them and waited impatiently for my camera battery. After a few minutes I tried it, and it hard just enough charge for me to grab some photos!
Pretty cool!
Tonight I started the new ethics topic on Fishing. I have plenty of questions, which is good, as I ran out of time before getting to the end in the classes.
And for dinner I made a quiche, trying a mixture of half butter and half margarine in the pastry, to try to cut down on the saturated fats a bit. It worked okay, but was a bit sticky to roll out. I’ll see how the second half goes after it’s been refrigerated for longer.
New content today: