barking at corellas in a gum tree

Penny must be almost recovered from her cough, to judge by the furious barking she engaged in this afternoon. No coughing, even though it was non-stop canine yelling for ages, when a huge flock of corollas landed in a big tree in our street.

Here's one branch of the tree with a small part of the visiting group:

Eventually they took off, screaming their typical cry, flying so low that we felt as if we should duck our heads. A few stayed behind for a while, but Penny didn't think she had to bark at these slow-coaches once the main flock had left.

My neighbour tells me they like the seedpods of liquid amber trees, and I did notice they flew from the  liquid amber tree over the road to the nearer tree - a lemon-scented gum.

I'll have to keep an eye on the liquid amber while it has seeds, in the hope of seeing the lovely birds back again. (Lovely at the moment, because none of my trees have fruit. I'm sure I'd be yelling at them like Penny and trying to get rid of them if they were eating my crop.)

Here's what a seed looked like (after they tossed it down on the street):

It seems the corollas can be seen by some as quite a nuisance, and their eating of liquid amber seeds may result in the spread of this non-native tree to bushland. (Discussion here.)

it's very dry here

No one seems to be discussing the weather lately, which is strange for Melbourne. I guess we're all just glad we didn't have many bush fires this summer and we're enjoying the glorious cool, sunny weather.

But when will we get some proper rain?

We walked in Darebin Parklands today and it was disturbing to see how dry everything is.

I'm interested in weeds, especially the edible ones, but I didn't recognise the plants that are surviving in the desert landscape of the dog area of the park. I wonder what they all are? Some were dandelions, those mineral-filled nutritious plants that are so ubiquitous, but they were the only ones I knew.

In one area where there has been a bonfire, a baby wattle has sprouted. I think I read somewhere that wattles are one of the first-line plants after a fire. They grow, add nitrogen to the soil, and prepare the way for other plants to colonise.

Seeing that little plant made me think of the plant that has sprouted in one of my vegetable beds in my own garden. (I've transplanted it, but I'm not sure it will survive.)

It's a baby lemon scented gum, probably offspring of the giant in our street. (The tree is so tall I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole tree in this photo.)