Spring has Sprung!

So I know I'm four days behind the eight-ball here, but you guys, IT'S SPRING!!! And what a glorious start to spring we've had here. It's been a balmy 25oC during the day (mind you, plummeting down to nearly freezing overnight), the birds are singing, the days are getting longer and the smell of cherry-blossoms is in the air. Actually, I think these are plum-blossoms, but aren't they just divine??! (why, yes, it HAS been Instagram'med... why do you ask??)

 

Speaking of divine, here's a picture for those of you who are of a Christian-based faith.

 

And for those of us who are agnostic/atheiest/botany geeks/just plain ol' love nature, here's another pretty one:

 

I love the hope and warmth that spring brings. I love the tone of that gorgous, blue sky. And, never content with what I have, I can't wait for summer!

Crikey! A Trip to Australia Zoo

I visited Brisbane over the Easter long weekend to visit Grant and his family, and on Good Friday we visited Australia Zoo.

I was thoroughly impressed by the place from the moment we walked through the ticket booth. The lady who served us was once Steve Irwin's body guard, and spoke with great emotion of her late, great employer (as did all the other staff). It was actually kind of an emotional experience.

All the staff were highly knowledgeable about the animals they handled (who can tell me the difference between the behaviour of (and amongst) crocodiles and aligators? Ooh, pick me! Pick me! I know now!), and quite clearly loved their charges - a couple of handlers looked unimpressed and a little bit upset when visitors would joke about eating the animals!

The cages were also spacious and well laid out. I don't actually recall seeing concrete anywhere but the walkways for humans, although there was probably some around some of the crocodile pools (but a lot of them were surrounded by grass... which, fun fact, has to be mown. One crocodile in particular has single-handedly (mouthedly??) destroyed four lawn mowers and a whipper snipper!). As a tree hugger, this pleased me muchly. The absence of concrete, that is. Not the crocodiles destroying horticultural equipment...

I expected the zoo to have a total focus on Australian wildlife (such as Healesville Sanctuary does), but it actually had quite a range of random animals.

We met an iguana (let's call him Jub-Jub, shall we? I **think** this is a Rhino Iguana, but they do actually have a Green Iguana called Jub-Jub!)

some tortoises having kisses (good to know you can still get frisky when you're quite a number of decades old!)

a wombat (I think this is a Common Wombat) and he really could move!

There were any number of reptiles (unsurprising, given it was formerly a reptile park). Most of the photos turned out blurry due to the low light and my inability to stand still, and it was particularly obvious given the pattern the scales make, so I will only subject you to four photos! And fewer exclamation marks from here on in! I promise! (I'll stop now...)

There was a large aviary, which was quite a serene place to sit and chill (at least, it was once you realised the birds weren't going to fly into you and peck your eyes out... although I do have a story about a magpie that flew into me (sort of), but that's another story for another time).

Then we patted kangaroos and koalas (btw, who thinks I look like a man dressed like this? Because I was mistaken for one. I **had** thought I didn't have a particularly masculine face but perhaps the (borrowed) V8 Supercar hat and work-issued sunglasses tipped it over the edge??)

After that it was time for the midday show, which included elephants

various birds which swooped about to Acca-Dacca's Thunderstruck (including this black cockatoo who strutted his stuff right in front of us, and who then took a swipe at a foreign tourist who thought it would be smart to pat something with a beak designed to crack nuts and strip branches off trees)

and the remaining Irwins - Terri, Bindi and Bob.

I have to say that Bindi is a little bit creepy - she seems totally fake, which I guess is a persona she projects to cope with the spotlight, but it doesn't make it any less creepy. Anyway, for now she seems to be an awesome role model for girls... provided she doesn't do a Miley Cyrus in a few years' time! It's also sad that Bindi and Bob's accents are about 3/4 American and 1/4 Australian now - I guess in the time elapsed since Steve's death they haven't had the Australian accent around home. It must be tough being surrounded by something that he built on a daily basis, and doing it with a sunny smile, so I guess Bindi's plastic creepiness is okay. Interestingly, though, "baby" Bob appeared (to me) to be completely disinterested in the whole thing. I guess he doesn't really remember his dad, so it probably means less to him to keep his memory alive.

 

 

Terri appears to have been wearing the same pair of high-waisted jeans like my mum wears since the late nineties, but she's pretty hands-on with the crocs so I guess it's okay about her pants ;)

They also had a massive dig at Channel 7, which aired the infamous footage of Steve dangling baby Bob over a crocodile. They also explained the entire situation from the perspective of experienced animal handlers, and, whilst not something **I** would do, I can see why he did it.

Croc keeper Wes is running from the crocodile here. This is the very same crocodile that put six massive holes in his bum and leg during the floods several years ago when their fences went down and they were trying to repair them before the crocs escaped. He was nearly dragged under the water but Steve saved him. There are photos of Wes' masticated bum up somewhere at the zoo and I must say he's pretty lucky to be alive! But he obviously loves his job, just like the rest of the staff.

Bindi is now old enough to be feeding crocs (under supervision, of course...). Here she is, with Wes literally holding her hand, feeding the croc at the show.

These three are Asian Otters, and they were super-cute. They need to be fed five times a day, and they absolutely knew when their keeper was on her way, because they crowded around the door she would be coming through and made adorable little noises. One of them was a total show-off, whilst another was totally over it and would just chill out and let the others compete for the food.

 It was whilst I was taking this photo of a cassowary that someone mistook me for a man. Nice one.

And I fed a nelephant half a kiwi fruit! The nelephant's name was Bimbo. Giggle. I know, I know, it probably means something cute in another language... One of the keepers told us that Steve Irwin used to go into the "kitchen" each day and pick out some fruit and veg and eat it; if it wasn't good enough for him then it wasn't good enough for the animals. And this crossed my mind as I handed the elephant this totally fresh, unbruised kiwifruit. Suffice it to say I loved the love this place has for its critters.

Altogether I had an awesome day. I was impressed by the keepers, by the facilities (both human and animal) and even by the food - there was a fair variety of healthy food and it didn't cost quite as many bajillion dollars as it did at Sea World. It also cost a little less to get into than Sea World (although a few bucks more than your average zoo - I think adult entry was around $55, and there were discounts for children, students, pensioners and defence force personnel - some of these groups of people would get in at half price. So if you're ever up on the Sunshine Coast, swing by. It's a big day to see everything, and if you have kids in tow you may wish to consider the option of the two day pass (with the second day being half price).

As for the late Steve Irwin, well I always thought he was a bit of a nutter for handling some of those animals/reptiles/arachnids the way he did, and I'm not altogether surprised that his life ended the way it did. But he wasn't anywhere near as reckless as Alby Mangles was (mind you, he wasn't as popular with the ladies as young Alby was, either. Even I, at the age of eight, had a wee crush on him!), and there has never been a shadow of doubt in my mind that he loved and understood the animals he handled, and was genuinely enthusiastic about them and cared about their welfare. There's a big difference between pissing a cobra off, and overfeeding your dog until it can barely walk which is, in my opinion, far worse. Steve and his family have done a lot for wildlife protection and rescue, both on a neighbourhood scale, across the country as well as overseas and that should be admired, no matter what you thought of the guy.

Rising rivers

Written on 20/01/11

In case you've been living under a rock, about 1/4 of Victoria is currently under water. It hasn't been the sudden, Act of God type of disaster that Queensland saw, but a creeping, lapping menace. Town by town, the northern central and western regions of Victoria have gone underwater. Yesterday, 52 towns had been affected.

My office is in Barham, and live in the caravan park sandwiched between the Murray River and the services club acting as an evacuation centre for Kerang. The forest where we work (or, more accurately, have been trying to work since October!) is under water for the third time in that period, while local landholders mutter rumours of a fourth. These people know the exact height of water flowing over Torrumbarry Weir that equates to parts of their property flooding, so I guess they're as good an indicator on the matter as the local water authorities.

One thing I have learnt in the last week is that the media and the road authorities aren't all that great at getting the story right. They're reporting roads shut that aren't, and not mentioning ones that are. It made getting to work the other day a long and tedious journey, and other people have been stranded or ruined their cars through a combination of stupidity and misinformation (more of the former, mind you!).

The one thing they did get right, though, is that we need to dig deep. People haven't died here like they did up north, but they've still lost a lot. And everyone is probably a bit over donating to flood appeals because they've already done it for Queensland, but there are people who need to start from scratch here, too.

And now for the things that the media hasn't mentioned - MURRAY CRAYS ARE CLIMBING OUT OF THE MURRAY RIVER!!! (Note: originally the words BECAUSE THERE'S TOO MUCH WATER were tacked on the end of that, but see the Update at the bottom)

I freaked out a little when I noticed one of these about 5cm from my foot, but then I realised that they were sitting there quite passively. These ones did a pretty good job of hiding, though. There's three there, in case you were struggling.

And another three. It would seem that the good people of Kerang are not the only ones evacuating!

I heard a rumour today that the Murray was flowing backwards due to the floodwaters from both NSW River and Victoria entering downstream of here, but upstream of the next weir along. This has lead to the water on the downstream side of Torrumbarry weir (the one just up from here) being higher than the water on the upstream side. Theoretically, water running uphill  may lead to the Murray breaching its banks in our area. I'm not sure whether or not it's true, but I plan to perpetuate the rumour with the following footage of the Murray flowing in two directions at once, just upstream from the Koondrook-Barham bridge:

                                    

Who cares if it's true that the river is running forwards and backwards at the same time? It looks like it is (if you're having trouble seeing it, the waterin the foreground is running to the left - upstream - whilst the water near the far bank is running to the right - downstream)! Why should I stick to well-researched facts if the media struggles?? The currents in this river are truly freaky. I had heard mention of their notoriety and never quite believed it, because every time I have seen the Murray it has been a sluggish cesspool of algae. But now I believe it.

Viva la responsible journalism!

28/01/11 UPDATE: This was written more than a week ago. The flood water is still creeping at a rate of 1-2km per day and today, Swan Hill is waiting for it to hit (huh. Guess it's not on a hill, then...). Yesterday I heard that the "puddle" is about 90km long and about 20km wide.

I also found out that the Murray crays were climbing out of the water because of the blackwater coming down the river. Blackwater is anoxic, acidic water, caused by vegetation decaying in stagnant (flood) waters. I'd be climbing out of the river, too, if I were them!

In other flood-related news, PM Julia Gillard has announced a tax to cover the costs of the flood clean-up in Queensland. Firstly, I hope that the Victorians see some of that money. Secondly, I think people need to harden the feck up and stop whingeing about it. The money has to come from somewhere, and I, as a tree-hugger, don't want to see ALL of the environmental initiatives axed to get that money (the broadband network, on the other hand...!). In my humble opinion, we're better off handing over the money than pulling it from somewhere else, because pulling it from somewhere else is exceptionally short-sighted and we'll notice it in five years time when our schools/roads/hospitals fall apart and then whinge about that.

And it's not like we can't afford it - people earning less than $50k are exempt, and whilst the people at the very bottom end of the $50k-$100k pay scale may feel the pinch a little, I would be very much surprised if they were able to tell me that they didn't spend $250 on random purchases throughout the year. DVDs cost between $10 and $30; a milkshake is $6 these days, and who really needs a milkshake??; women would spend at least $75 each year on shoes "because they were on sale"; dropping $20 here and there into the pokies; magazines are between $5 and $10 but that same gossip is FREE online; all-week newspaper subscriptions that people only actually read on weekends; leaving the heater on in winter while you go to work (people actually do that!); going to the cinema costs nearly $20 (I was horrified to discover this - I have been living near an $8 cinema for nearly 3 years and had no idea!!!), or $35 if you add snacks, but a DVD and a packet of chips would set you back about $7... the list goes on! I do think, though, that people who have donated more than a certain amount to flood charities should probably have some kind of partial exemption.

How's THAT for a can of worms :)

Lastly, the river still appears to be flowing backwards!

Popcorn! (WARNING: This is NOT about food)

Anyone living in South Eastern Australia has probably heard a great deal about the massive locust plague that's supposed to eat all our crops and wreak havoc.

Well, I'm pretty sure that the heavy rain we've been getting has done more damage to the crops than the locusts have (so far - they're predicting 2 or 3 generations to breed this summer), but they are everywhere.

This is one of the little buggers I have waiting for me when I get home to the caravan park in Barham (yes, Nessie is technically trailer trash at the moment. Well, cabin trash, anyhow!). Yesterday when I checked in to my usual cabin, I had to remove about fifteen of them before I was satisfied that none would flit about and freak me out in my sleep. Luckily they're fairly sluggish and you can catch them with one hand while you're chatting on the phone, but every so often you get one that demands your full attention, otherwise you'd be chasing it around in circles all day.

Anyway, I decided to write about them because today as I walked across the grass on my way to get lunch, clouds and clouds of them rose up around me. I was exceptionally glad that I had chosen to wear my sunglasses down the street, because otherwise one of them would have flown directly into my eye. And the first person I thought of was my friend Kirsti, because I wondered whether her dislike for butterflies (quite a common dislike, as it turns out) translated into a more generalised fear of flying bugs, or if it was just butterflies that gave her the heebie jeebies.

So I'm not sure whether this meandering entry will give bug-hatin' people the heebie jeebies or whether they would make them jump up out of their chair and dance a bloodthirsty little "HAH! They got what was coming to them!" kind of dance. Who knows?! Who cares?!

The other day when I started my drive home to Melbourne, I had the window down a smidge to let some cool air in before I turned the air con on, and one flew straight into my face. I brushed it off, and it ran down the back of my neck. I pulled it out of my shirt and tried to throw it out the window, but it had other ideas. So I had company most of the way back to Melbourne. I finally got him (her? How does one tell?) out via a tricky maneuovre involving having cruise control on, opening the window, very slowly raising my right knee to the level of the window and brushing it out.

Safety first!

(Best I don't tell you about the time I did a full change of clothing with the cruise control on, then...)

(Actually, I could argue that my locust removal technique was the safer option, because he (she?) was really distracting me!)

(Anyway.)

I haven't seen the massive swarms that were heard about on the news, and I'm ever so slightly disappointed by that. Anyone who knows me knows that I like freaky nature stuff! For whatever reason, I've missed them. I must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've seen them in huge numbers on the ground, before they're mature enough to fly, and the more mature ones just veging out on concrete, grass, wherever. It crosses my mind that they're old and dying, because they're not particularly active.

And I've seen them sitting there on the road or on the forest tracks, being run over. I think they like the heat of the exposed surfaces or something, because apparently the swarms follow roads. Running over them was when I discovered that they sound like popcorn, and you know what? It's not just when you run over them. It's also when you run into them, or, when they run into you. As I sit here, I hear the occasional pinging - much like the sound of a kernel of popcorn exploding in a saucepan - of a locust flying into the side of the cabin. Sometimes they sit on the concrete outside, waiting, and sometimes they sit on your windows. If you were the sort of person who got the heebie jeebies from bugs, this picture might freak you out. It's like it's casing the joint, looking for a way in. It's only a matter of time before it evolves opposable thumbs and realises that it can come in via the door while you are sleeping... MWOARHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Ahem.

So, I return to the popcorn.

The other Friday as I drove back to Melbourne, I drove through several biggish swarms of them (although I assume they weren't as bad as the clouds that are supposed to impede your vision and make you pull over. These only partly obstructed my vision, so I kept on truckin'). At first I counted how many I had hit, but by the time I got to a couple of hundred popcorn pops I realised that I really was doing my bit for agriculture and possibly also for environmental conservation.

They coated my headlights.

They smeared my windows. This particular streak is from just one solitary locust that exploded down the side of my car just after I left Cohuna. I remember it well because I saw it happen and was amazed that so much goop came out of one bug.

(I assume that, like cockroaches, locusts are mainly fat on the inside, which is why it's so hard to get your windscreen clean with just water and wiper blades)

They also get into your engine bay, and if you're not careful, I'm fairly certain they could clog up your intercooler. That's why you see a lot of people driving around with shadecloth on the fronts of their cars.

But they don't just get into your engine bay - they REALLY get into your engine bay. They get jammed in all sorts of corners. Like this one. This fella looks a little bit like he climbed in here on purpose and is just chilling out, don'tcha think?

Anyway, just thought I'd share. I like bugs! Even dead ones!

Meanwhile, the River Murray continues to rise. Apparently there's a fair to better than average chance that we'll have a 1-in-100-year flood (you know, the maximum flood event that modern infrastructure is generally built to take on) within the next week. Our office Christmas party - which was supposed to be on a paddlesteamer on the Murray - has been moved to dry land, because it didn't seem all that smart to have most of the state's senior management on the same boat in the middle of a river in flood!

But I find it amusing that on the day that the chairman of the Murray Darling Basin Authority tendered his resignation, allegedly over tensions associated with water allocations, the river is little more than half a metre from topping over into the caravan park where I am staying.

I know that was a rambling and pointless and somewhat less than entertaining post, but I felt like writing tonight, and wanted to get back into practice. So sue me!

(Please don't sue me. It's Christmas!)

Food for Thought - Mosquitoes 101

I've been on the go a bit over the last few months since my last project finished up in Adelaide, and it's all been work-related.

First, I headed up north to the Territory, where I visited sites my company has acquired in Alice Springs, Katherine and Darwin. It was quite novel travelling for work, and a bit of a head trip that they would fly me about (yay! Frequent Flyer points!), put me up in a relatively nice hotel worth in excess of $200 per night, and chuck me the keys to a hire car with reckless abandon.

Besides being tired of running all over the place, it was great seeing Grant in Alice Springs and my cousin Darren as well as Grant's parents in Darwin, and also catching up with an old work mate in Katherine.

That was part of a month I spent in our South Australian head office, and during that time I was pulled here and there and given extra work to do that wasn't relevant to the reason I was sitting in the office (which is why, when I'm done blogging, I will be doing some of the work I didn't quite finish at the time. It's very close to finished, mind you, but it's kind of grating on my nerves!).

And then last week, my company very generously flew my Good Friend and Ever Willing Partner In Crime, Alice, over to Adelaide so that she could drive back with me to Melbourne, where I spent a week in our office in Richmond, familiarising myself with the new project. As if being Corporate Nessie in Adelaide hadn't worn me down for four weeks, I had had enough of it all AGAIN on my very first day in Melbourne, when it took me nearly two hours to get to work. Sure, half an hour of that was because I overshot my turnoff due to roadworks confusing me, but most of it was the traffic. It was just awful. So the rest of the week saw me rising before six to be at work at 7, so that I could leave before 4. Ugh.

And now, I'm in Barham, NSW. It's a tiny little town on the Murray, about half way between Swan Hill and Echuca. It's a little over 300km from Melbourne and is on the opposite side of the Murray to Koondrook, its Victorian counterpart. The two towns are separated by a single lane bridge that's more than a hundred years old and has a Give Way sign on one side, and a section in the middle that lifts(ed?) up to admit the paddle steamers of old. It's such a small town that the bloke who delivered flowers to me yesterday said hello in the street this morning!

To the mosquitos.

Recently, there have been significant flows in the Murray River due to flooding that began in North-Eastern Victoria. This interactive map shows you how full the reservoirs are. During this flooding, the forest we are supposed to be working in was flooded, as were many surrounding areas, and now there are pools of stagnant water all over the place. (This flooding also caused a black water event, which also means that in some backwaters there are piles of rotting fish all over the place, too.)

And so now there are mosquitoes.

I belive that there always ARE mosquitoes here at this time of year, but on my evening stroll today I was blown away by the number of them and the noise. As I walked along the river bank - probably not the smartest thing I could have done at twilight, truth be told - there were clouds and clouds of them. And you know that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztzzzzzzzzzztzzzztzzzzzzzzzztzzzzzzzz sound they make? Well muliply that by about twelve million. And I'm not exaggerating. As I walked with the river to my left, there was a very distinct and high-pitched whining coming from the direction of the river. Where the path wound towards the river and (introduced) trees stood out, the clouds of mosquitoes came a little bit further inland.

Seeing all these clouds of mosquitoes, in fact, walking THROUGH these clouds of mosquitos with ne'er a nibble, seemed nothing short of a miracle. I assumed that it was because I hadn't stopped still, and perhaps there was some merit in that. But it did get me wondering about the Secret Life of Mosquitoes.

So here's five fun facts about mosquitoes!

1. The gents keep their probocuses to themselves - it is the ladies that bite, and even then, not all species will bite

2. Both males and females generally feed on plant sap and nectar (which would explain why they were hovering about the trees), but the females will seek out blood for its protein and iron before breeding

3. Mosquitoes lay eggs in water, which then develop into pupae and then larvae. This part of the life cycle lasts 10-14 days, and the adult stage lasts 1-2 weeks (although they can survive up to a month in captivity <-- I must say the concept of a mosquito in captivity utterly captivates me. No pun intended, by the way!)

4. Most mosquito species are crepuscular. Great word, huh?! It means dusk or dawn feeder, which explains why you generally only get bitten in the evening - because you're still snug as a bug at dawn (and they're probably a bit sluggish from the overnight cold), and most are having a siesta in the middle of the day. Except the Asian Tiger Mosquito. He sounds a bit scary...

5. Mosquitos find their host by detecting carbon dioxide, which all mammals exhale. They will exhibit more generalised feeding behaviour - casually zipping about the place - until they detect CO2, and then they go in for the kill. Or drink, as the case may be.

Now, for good measure, I looked up this Asian Tiger Mosquito, and as it turns out, THIS is the little bastard that is ALWAYS attacking me!!! Not the nice, sleepy brown ones, but the evil, zippy, stripey ones! Get him! GET HIM! *slap* *slap* *slap*

It makes you a bit itchy just looking at him, doesn't it...