Category: Posts

It’s not a Pygmy Possum …

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We’ve had an ID on the possum mentioned in my previous post.

Local Peter Szaif says that it’s actually a Feathertail Glider … also known as the pygmy gliding possum, pygmy glider, and flying mouse, and it’s the world’s smallest gliding possum so named for its long feather-shaped tail which is just visible in the photograph.

A bit of trivia: the Feathertail Glider was featured on the Australian 1cent coin until it was withdrawn from circulation in 1991.  I found a small stash of them in the garage when I moved in and I’m still hoarding them trying to think of a use for them.  If the previous owners had handed them in, they would have been melted down for the Bronze Medals in the 2000 Sydney Olympics!

Blue Banded bees …

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I should have read the label more carefully when I bought this beautiful Black Knight salvia. But I didn’t and consequently planted it in the wrong spot.  I read that it flowers for most of the year, but I missed the bit where it said – grows to three metres!

I’m going to propagate from it and plant the offspring in a more suitable spot, but in the meantime I put up with it blocking part of a path because it’s a bee magnet. Almost any time of the day I see native stingless bees buzzing around.

Native stingless with pollen
Native stingless with leg sacks full of pollen

And only recently, I realized that what I thought were large flies scooting around the garden, are actually native Blue Banded bees.  They are an absolute B…… to photograph because they hover and dart like a manic helicopter.

Blue Banded bee
Blue Banded bee

Blue Banded bees are buzz pollinators and they carry the pollen on their backs. If you are growing tomatoes, eggplants, kiwi fruit, chillies or blueberries the Blue Banded is the bee for you because apparently buzz pollination is the most efficient way to pollinate.

 

Possum envy …

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I wish I could say that this adorable little creature is “mine” but I can’t.

It turned up yesterday on the veranda of my friends Trish & Richard, looking a bit poorly.  We think it might be an Eastern Pygmy Possum, a threatened species which weighs between 10 and 50 grams – that’s about the same as a normal chicken egg!  You can see just how small it is when you compare it to the width of the decking in the photo below.

By the time we’d finished our coffee it was gone, hopefully safely back up a tree.

I’d love to think that they were sneaking around MY garden after dark.

Note: photo courtesy of Richard Carruthers

 

 

 

At last … the elusive Catbird !

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They’ve been taunting me with their cat-like calls from the tops of tall trees for weeks, but today was my lucky day!  Forty minutes of sitting still with a cramp in my hip and mosquitos biting me through my clothes and I finally had a photo of a Green Catbird …

He seemed quite aware of my presence as he kept looking in my direction and cocking his head but providing I didn’t move, he seemed quite relaxed.  Another photo for the Bird Gallery.