Spring, Glorious Spring!

Hi fellow bloggers/readers, again, it's been a while between drinks. Hope you've all been well.

We've had a fun, busy few months, and have so been enjoying the arrival of Spring. From little buds blooming on the occasional plant, to lambs frolicking clumsily in the paddocks, there's been lots of awe, observation, and discussion of the changes amongst us. We've adorned our seasonal table with egg shells, a bird's nest, posies of flowers and other Spring treasures and have been spending lots more time outdoors in the garden and our surrounding area.

We had a great week in Sydney suburbs recently, exploring the bushwalking trails where my Gran lives. She's just alongside the Georges River and bought her home as a tiny shack for next to nothing, years ago on a couple of acres of fertile bushland. These days the house is much larger and more comfortable and the land is probably worth a mint, but she wouldn't dream of selling- we are so thankful for that, as her place is a true sanctuary for us, it's ''home''. I spent my first 4 years there as a child, and every school holidays after that, and have fantastic memories of wandering about with an old saucepan making ''witches stew'' in the bush. Water from the outside tap, a fist full of soil, a few strips of paper bark, an assortment of crushed-up leaves, a sprinkling of camelia petals, and a pinch of maiden hairfern for good measure (or fairy bubblegum, as we used to call it). Now my own kids are leading their own games and exploration, in what seems like a land of infinite possibility. Caves for hiding in, jutting rocks to climb, rainbow lorikeets, rosellas, king parrots and grass parrots to spot... exciting stuff!

Anyway, back to the bushwalking... we took quite a few photos of native Australian wildflowers in Sydney, and plan on taking some more in the bush near our own home, so we can compare the flora and see if we can spot the same species. We've decided to head to Borders this week and buy ourselves a book of native plants and a bird book (hopefully a couple of pairs of binoculars eventually too, as bird watching has become a shared interest.) Between myself and Gran we were able to label several of the natives on our walk but for some we had no clue, so Mr 4 and I have decided to do some research. Here are a few pics from our travels.

Hope to be back soon with more Spring adventures. Til then, take care.
Blogmum.

Our lovely local bushland

We're lucky to live very close to a pretty vast area of rugged bushland with several walking trails and cycle ways throughout. We regularly go walking, or sometimes the kids ride their bikes, and we spot so many different kinds of birds and insects. After lunch today we decided it was the perfect weather for it so off we went.

Some of the bird calls you hear around this area are beautiful, and the birds often fly into our yard. We wake up to rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras and sulphur crested cockatoos either pecking at the bananas on our tree, or fossicking about in the yard for crumbs the kids have dropped.

During our walk today, Eli surprised me by saying ''I just heard a Whipbird Mummy.'' I'd never pointed out or discussed whipbirds with him before, so I asked where he'd heard / learned about them. He informed me his source was Hi-5, an episode where the characters pretended to be bush animals and made a song from different animal noises. I heard the drawn out call twice more, it was definately an Eastern Whipbird, but try as we might we couldn't spot our little feathered friend anywhere. We discovered later this isn't unusual- according to some later research, it's a shy bird more often heard than seen. And another interesting fact, the call you hear is often a duet between a male and female bird. The long note followed by the ''whip crack'' sound is the male, answered by the female's following notes!

We stopped for a drink and snack at a picnic area and once our ''batteries'' were recharged, I suggested we do some creepy crawly spotting- lifting up some fallen branches and bark to see what we could find. The kids excitedly agreed and almost immediately Eli discovered a fat witchetty grub (moth larva). He held it in his flat palm and watched it wriggle, apparently it felt ticklish. I told Eli that Aboriginal people eat Witchetty grubs, and I have heard they taste like chicken! Unsurprisingly he wasn't keen for a taste himself, and gently placed the grub back beneath his woody shelter. Some later reading told us that Witchetty grubs are named after the Witchetty bush in Central Australia, which they feed on. But in our area, they feed on the roots of River Red Gum, and they are also the larva of a different type of moth than the ones in Central Aus.

Lovely weather at the moment as Summer turns to Autumn... still the sunshine but with a nice breeze. Lots more bushwalks ahead for us! If anyone else in Newcastle is interested, Kahibah Public School has a website with some great info on the local walks and cycleways (history etc) and other cool environmental stuff in Newcastle (this blog site won't let me copy and paste the web address, so please Google Kahibah Public School, and click on ''links'' the ''Kahibah & environs''.)

Thanks for reading,
Blogmum.