Come For A Stroll In My Garden-Melbourne Is Lush Again

Just love summer!

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When I laze here, it’s just me and the birds!

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Grapes and olives putting on a show this summer

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My home is my castle

Our Pet Spider Has Died

Our pet Marble Orb Weaver in the prime of her life

I am sad to report that our pet spider and mother of up to one thousand babies, has died; withered away really  (see post when we first met this marble orb weaver).  Last weekend I noticed she had three legs on one side missing, possibly eaten by another spider while she was in her weakening state? Or did they drop off?  Anyway,   I have checked on her several times a day, but today I knew the end was near.  She began to lose all her colour  and then began to shrivel up.  I assume a day is a long time in a spider’s life. She has made her home in our rosemary bush since January of this year, and ultimately showed no fear of us; at first she would scurry away, but then she got used to us and just hung upside down  in the middle of her fantastic web waiting for a honey bee to get trapped in it.  (see earlier post about this amazing spider)  Her eggs are still in their cocoon, I am not sure when they will emerge.  We have been privileged to watch this amazing spectacle of nature for so many months.  I guess she has lived a much longer life than her mate whom she  most likely had eaten  straight after mating.   I used to be terrified of spiders, but not any more.

Marble orb weaver egg cocoon (40mm) as light as a feather, alongside corpse of mother spider

Sparrow Tree & Wetlands

As much as I prefer spring and summer, winter does have its compensations.  Our garden is visible through large windows around the house, including our office, so the bird life entertains us all day. I feed the small birds every morning and the magpies, Maggie and Mac,  come around three 0r four times a day and call out to me for my home baked grain bread.  They must be nesting at the moment because they are taking mouthfuls of bread away.  They are easy to tell apart; males are bigger and have white backs while females have grey speckled backs.  They sit on Cleo the cat’s log which does not please her one bit, but they tolerate each other.  The trees are full of sparrows today, a couple of bush warblers are singing their morning song on the roof and every so often a willy wagtail flits around on the bird bath or the outside table.  The pair of mudlarks who think they own the place, arrive with regular monotony to hover and strut around noisily telling all the  other birds to bugger off.  Not that they take any notice.   Since we built this house three years ago, we have been visited daily by a pair of grey doves who are quite happy to feed with the sparrows and we love the sound of their soft lovey dovey cooing in what I assume is their mating season in warmer weather.

Most days Paul and I do a thirty minute walk around the wetlands across the park  from our home,  where ducks, swans, swamp hens, spur-winged plovers,   and a resident cormorant seem to spend their days in serenity.  The silence is broken only by bird chatter and frog  sounds.  That is until a flock of parrots, such as galahs,  corellas or cockatoos, decides to fly over or land in the park; such a cacophony of screeching and squawking.  Cheeky, chirpy  willy wagtails (black & white fantails) hop and skip all around us on our walk.

Mac sitting on Cleo's log waiting for a chat & a morsel

The sparrow tree overlooking our garden

Breakfast time amid the olive trees

serene wetlands

Cormorant, resident in the wetlands, awaits its supper

Wetlands

Black & White Pair

Cleopatra in hiding

Each morning we anticipate a regular knock on either our back or front door.  Who would knock on our door almost every morning you ask?  Well, it is a devoted pair who wish to take a bath and sample my freshly baked grain bread.  Maggie and Mac make up a pair of talkative magpies.  When they have a baby chick one of them will land on our fence, swoop in to take a bath and then knock on our door, usually around dawn.  When we finally surface and feed Mac with a few chunks of bread, he will have his fill and then fly off with a beak full of bread for the nest.   When junior is a little bigger or has flown the nest, Maggie and Mac will arrive for a bath together, knock,  then sit on the fence waiting for morsels.  Mac flies down to check the offering then chortles for Maggie to join him.  Then they walk about our garden as though they own it, throwing up straw and soil looking for creepy crawlies to finish off their breakfast.  Sometimes they take a stroll  around the patio peering in at us through the glass doors while checking for stray titbits.   Cleo our beloved Burmese cat keeps her distance, she  knows from past experience, the kamikazi skills of magpies.

Maggie & Mac on one of their daily visits to our garden