I mentioned last week that we have to stay on our property for 14 days. We cannot go anywhere. We were not too concerned about having to stay at home, because we have plenty of things that we can do and there is always plenty to observe. The water we provide in our garden attracts many birds including the Double-barred Finch in the header photo.
Our garden is mostly native plants, which attract both birds and insects. If you live in Australia you can contribute to science with the Wild Pollinator Count, which runs from April 12th-19th and only requires ten minutes of your time watching a plant! The red soil around Broome is called “Pindan” and much of our property remains natural and native plants thrive with minimal water.
Native flowers
We also grow some herbs including lemon basil, basil, chives and lemongrass The most successful vegetable in the tropics is the snake bean. You can almost sit and watch them grow! They are really growing upwards at the moment and soon they will flower. Once the beans start to grow we experienced about 3cm of growth per bean per day last year! When you are at home every day all day you see the changes almost as they happen!
Snake Beans
Snake Beans last year
During the week we had a bit of variety in our weather too. We had got used to the teasing clouds as the end of the Wet Season is upon us. Suddenly the atmosphere was right and the sky opened. The rain poured down at 3:10pm on Tuesday and poured down off our roof into our rainwater butts. It completely missed the butt closer to the house and the outer butt overflowed in less than one minute! The temperature fell 10c in a matter of minutes and 22c/71f felt cold! In a matter of a few minutes we had 10mm of rain and the garden rejoiced! The blue sky then returned!
Rain-yippee!
Wednesday evening the moon rose up over our back fence. We watched it rise up and into the clouds. It would have been nice to be in the bush to enjoy the complete night sky, but with all of the travel restrictions in place we won’t be camping anywhere any time soon.
Full moon rising April 8th
We have another week of self-isolation on our property and it is anybody’s guess what we may see! There really feels like there is a change in the weather now. Maybe it is time to plant tomatoes and lettuce too!
The shorebirds continue to migrate into the Northern Hemisphere to breed. You can follow their migration daily now on this website.
Another activity that anybody anywhere in the world can contribute too is becoming a Seal Spotter. You look at photos taken by drones of Australian Fur Seals around Phillip Island and count them. There’s no commitment to how many you do, but if you have a few spare minutes then it is a great project to be involved in. I noticed a few birds on the photos I looked at this week!
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