Thread: What's in your garden?

Originally Posted by Looper

A tree fell by the power line and narrowly missed taking it out.


I am going to start looking at solar options to go offgrid with a battery. The day is coming sooner or later when a big tree falls and takes out my power, and getting the poles fixed and the very hefty 95mm2 double cable restrung will likely come with a pretty hefty price tag.

Solar batteries can be hard to justify, but when they remove the reliance on a 250m long powerline through a forest of falling trees it can become fiscally feasible not to mention financially fruitful.

If I can get my solar skates on I could possibly avoid a proper spanking.

This could be a very prescient post. Is Alfred expected anywhere near you ? Going to be quite a few trees down in it's path. I see the AFL has forsaken TV ratings and the mighty dollar for once, and postponed the Brisbane and Gold Coast games because of it.

Originally Posted by mikenot

Is Alfred expected anywhere near you ?

It is indeed Mike

Alfred The Great


I was driving to watch the Alfredian surf when I realised there was something flapping around inside the car

Behold the bat-mobile

Got his echo-locators fired up

I considered ejecting him in suburbia but then thought it would be better to take him back to the forest

This freaked people out at the petrol garage as he was flapping around and sticking to the windows

Coont landed on my head while I was driving!

I've never thought about this before.

Do you have marsupial bats in Aussie or just the normal mammal bats that everywhere else has?

That chap haa a bit of a Trumpian hairdo going on.

The most commonly seen bats in Australia are fuitbats, AKA flying foxes. I get them in the forest. They love eucalyptus blossom and are the most significant fertilisation vector for gum trees. Without bats, the cute and cuddly koalas would be doing it tough.

Fruit bats are large creatures with good eyesight and no sonar, the size of a cat or small dog. Fruitarians.

That thing in my car is a normal fledermaus bat like in Europe, much smaller with the sonar ears and the tiny blind eyes. The size of a large mouse. Eats insects.

None of them are marsupials.

The only flying marsupials are sugargliders. They don't really fly, just jump and glide between trees. But much cuter than either bat family.

^ Bats aren't blind, Looper, that's a myth. Many have small eyes that are adapted to vision in low light, in which conditions they can actually see better than humans.

They use their ears more than eyes in many cases, and sonar of course, but 'as blind as a bat' is pure nonsense.

I spent my glorious Sydney days chilled out on Victoria Street and would cut back from the Opera House through the Botanical gardens upon an eve, only to find my good self locked inside there during one late stroll, where upon the skies went from 2H to 8B in around 10 seconds as 20 billion flying foxes all took to the air at once. You don't get that in Cor... Milano, I though to myself. I believe whilst praying.

Originally Posted by Mendip

^ Bats aren't blind, Looper, that's a myth. Many have small eyes that are adapted to vision in low light, in which conditions they can actually see better than humans.

They use their ears more than eyes in many cases, and sonar of course, but 'as blind as a bat' is pure nonsense.

Of course it is nonsense. That is why you never see a bat with glasses.

The size of this thing!

I like them, they don't hurt more than a bee sting you murderer

Originally Posted by Mendip

The size of this thing!

I remember when I lived in Chumphon I was lying on the floor watching TV and I turned around and one of them fuckers was sat right next to me. Used a brush to hockey hit that bastard out the front door.

^^ I netted it out from the bottom of the pool. Not a murderer but an attempted rescue, although it wasn't getting cpr.

Originally Posted by Mendip

Not a murderer

I know, you don't have it in you, not where nature is concerned. I left a whole area 1 Rai to stay wild and tbh its my favourite part of the garden as its full of insects, birds and reptiles.

Originally Posted by malmomike77

I left a whole area 1 Rai to stay wild and tbh its my favourite part of the garden as its full of insects, birds and reptiles.

I left the end of the garden wild and a small area behind the house which I can watch from the kitchen window. Then a cobra took up residence. Got that tall grass down to ground level right sharpish.

^ its not near the house

One of my orchids is in full bloom, spectacular this year.

Very nice, ao.

This was the cock and balls I did a while back

I thought I would my expand my oeuvre of lawn art with a bikini clad beauty for the titillation of passing light aircraft

I was drinking tea in my hammock today when a Honey-eater landed on the 4.5m tall agave flower. It hadn't noticed me so when I went lift up my camera it panicked and flew into the window and knocked itself out.

It came too and seemed to have a broken wing. You can see its honey-dipper tongue sticking out.

So I wrapped it in a swaddling cloth to keep its wing still and put it in an open shoe-box and gave it some honey-water.

I went gardening and was half expecting it to be dead when I got back but it had miraculously recovered and done a poo on my swaddling and flown away.

Originally Posted by Looper

So I wrapped it in a swaddling cloth

a kindly and very biblical approach, your handling of birds is extraordinary.

Originally Posted by david44

your handling of birds is extraordinary

A bird on the balcony is worth 2 in the agave bush, Dave...

A honey-eater departs the blooming blossom as a Rainbow Lorikeet watches and a Butcher Bird eyes me beadily from the railing for some hot dogs

I did not feed him today as it is not healthy for them to eat junk food every day.

He then followed me round the forest while I was working and snagged all the bugs that got turned up by my activities. A more healthy option.

Surprisingly he also ate a dead cockroach that I had killed when it raced across my t-shirt as I was drinking tea in my hammock the day before. I did not know they would eat dead insects that were not still wriggling.