He doesn't have a name.

I'm fairly sure this bloke is a pelican, but we've never been formally introduced.   He's been hanging round for around eight years give or take, and occasionally brings a mate or two, but only he calls our place home.   If we walk down to the lawn he'll swim over and walk up to what he considers to be a safe distance, expecting us to feed him I guess, but we never do.  Or maybe just once or twice we have when  we have had a small fish at hand.

There always seems to be a shortage of pelican food when we go to Aldi.  He disappears for a month or two in winter presumably to try his luck out west at a B&S ball.

He was grubbier than usual today, I'm not sure whether it's a bit of diesel or just dirty foam after the rain, perhaps I could have used a picture I'd prepared earlier, but I rather like telling it as it is today.

Social Scorecard 2010:
Day No: 7
Nights at Home: 7
Days Without Visitors: 3

It's just nice! Day 6

I can't remember a day since we've lived here that we haven't been grateful for the experience, and I suppose that fact alone puts us in some sort of elite company.  This morning it was a Curlew or Curlew Sandpiper that escaped before I could get my camera onto it, but the pic from the steps was pretty nice in the early overcast light.

If only I'd had a bigger lens, or a camera at the ready, or I'd got up earlier or.....does that sound like a grateful person to you??

Actually I didn't get it clearly identified, but it's almost certainly one of a variety of migratory birds  which come down from Siberia to enjoy our Autumn, some of them stay, and I figure he's one of them.

Social Scorecard 2010:
Day No: 6
Nights at Home: 6
Days Without Visitors: 3

Day 5

It's dull and overcast and this pair of Race novaehollandia (Spur-winged Lapwings) just loved plodding up and down Papa's Beach occasionally finding whatever it is they were looking for.  

They are pretty timid, and I normally wouldn't worry about trying to stake them out with a too-short lens, however we cannot be certain that we have sufficient time remaining here to get that perfect souvenir!

Social Scorecard 2010:
Day No: 5
Nights at Home: 5
Days Without Visitors: 2

Day 4 - Be careful what you wish for.

The last of the super king tides today, Mr Three had fun swimming on the boatshed deck before he went home yesterday.  "Papa's Beach" is a sensational place to swim on the high tide, and we seem to waste an awful lot of time watching the schools of fish swimming among the submersed Pigweed.

Roger and Margaret's place is the only other structure we can see from our place, and I used to joke that I'd made an application to have it demolished because it ruined our habitat.  I didn't count on our habitat being included in that demolition order as well.

Today I spoke with the Main Roads Department, who tell me there should be some news next Tuesday. It's impossible to believe how intrusive the spectre of resumption is into one's psych.   Emotions change hourly.  No matter how much we tell ourselves we were only borrowing this little patch, the probability that it will have 55,000 cars running over it each day doesn't seem to compute!

Social Scorecard 2010:
Day No: 4
Nights at Home: 4
Days Without Visitors: 1

Day 3

Early evening, across the mangroves to Nicklin Way.

Social Scorecard 2010:
Day No: 3
Nights at Home: 3
Days Without Visitors: 0

Day 2

Don't despair, I'm sure there'll be a tale or two to tell eventually.

Today was one of three days in the last 16 years when the tide made it over the boat shed floor, or to be more accurate since the boat shed has only been at that level for seven, since the tide has been of sufficient height to flood the boat shed floor if indeed it had been there previously.  Actually neither boat shed nor tide.... oh forget it!

I suspect that wherever we live in the future, we'll never forget what a privileged existence we've led in our time here.  Sure the midges do visit from time to time, but there's nothing quite like wandering ankle deep among the fish and pig weed in the clear water of a king tide, when it's all happening in one's own back yard.

Social Scorecard 2010:

Day No: 2

Nights at Home: 2

Days Without Visitors: 0

Day 1 - 2010

What's the point in posting, I wondered.  The photo is the same, the blind hasn't moved, the glare that comes off the water every morning means that it's impossible to get a properly exposed shot, and the green tinted glass means the colour balance will never be right.

Then we looked and realised (as if we didn't already know) that the house changes when we have visitors.  It isn't a comfortable nest for a pair of almost retirees, it becomes a beach house with towels and sand and scooters and surfboards hanging round.

And to top it off, the first words I heard this year were from the floor near my bed:  "There were fireworks Papa!", and there were, we watched the early session at least from the verandah by the beach towels.  Well we watched those that rose above the mangroves anyway, and we didn't have far to go to bed.    I don't remember another year when we didn't make it to midnight.

Social Scorecard 2010:
Day No: 1
Nights at Home: 1
Days Without Visitors: 0