Nameless Kitty Camper

Or Trespussers will be Mollycoddled.

Meet our Nameless Kitty Camper.

We did just that on Tuesday last week.

Since then, she’s spent every day and night in our backyard, either snoozing in the Winter sun or curled up in the box we used to keep kindling in.

Now we keep a cat in it.

Fortunately, we love cats at the UpsideDownHouse.

The only reason we don’t have one is that our landlord said we would have to keep it outside. I don’t agree with cats being out at night, so we decided to wait until we buy a house in a couple of years.

Of course, if she hangs around I’ll be checking with all the neighbours and so on. But we’ve been here for 2 years so far and hadn’t seen her before this, so I have the feeling that she’s either been dumped or abandoned.

If we can’t track down her owners we’ll take over the kitty healthcare stuff.

And yes, I am a sucker. I’ve bought some cat biscuits and chicken necks and we are feeding her.

But she’s sooo affectionate. Even before I started feeding her.

So we don’t really have a pet cat, but we do.

Does that make sense?

Fungus Fetish, Anyone?

Yesterday morning when I put the guinea pigs outside in their run, I found the weirdest looking fungus I had ever seen in our backyard.

I say ‘had’ because having spent a couple of hours looking around on the net to see what it was, I can now conclusively state that fungi are the most perverted plant on the planet.

It turns out that this one is called lysurus mokusin, also known as Lantern Fungus, and it’s one of the more low-key phallic fungi around. You should check out phallus impudicus.

There’s a whole family of these stinkhorns, which use a foul smell to attract bugs, who then spread the spores. I didn’t notice any smell myself, so maybe it has special bug-smell pheromones or something.

Pretty weird, huh?

Tackling a suburban pest

Today’s find was kind of sad, but it made me angry, too.

I walked across the backyard from the car (just got back from dropping Wren at school & Mr Bump at preschool) and noticed a strange sticky lump near the trampoline. It looked like some kind of weird slug-like creature, but then I noticed that I could see a spine and what looked like ribs.

Using a twig, I moved it and it became apparent that what I’d found was the unhatched foetus of a brown Indian Mynah bird. The egg must have been knocked or blown from its nest.

Indian Mynahs are an introduced species, brought in to deal with locust plagues in the 1880s. Of course, they instead became one of the biggest threats to native birds in Australia. One less is a blessing, I suppose. At least the dead baby bird wasn’t a native, like the grey Noisy Mynah.

So what can we do in our own backyards?

It seems the main way we can make a difference is to Plant Australian natives. This will support existing local native birds and Indian Mynahs apparently prefer imported species.

Also, don’t feed birds or leave pet food out. Native birds don’t need it and it will just encourage more mynahs to breed.

Our local council has native plant give-aways in spring, so check with yours to see if they do.

I miss seeing rosellas, and hearing the songs magpies and laughing kookaburras… It’s time to bring them back.

An Unexpected Visitor

Wren, Mr Bump and I were talking on the back step this afternoon, when we heard a voice talking in the jacaranda above us.

We looked up, and down swooped the most beautiful sulphur-crested cockatoo and perched near us on the wooden beam of our pergola. He (it’s usually only male birds who talk) strutted around chatting with us for a good 2 hours, following us as we moved around the yard.

In particular, he seemed to really enjoy watching the kids bouncing on the trampoline.

We’ve found that he had escaped from a yard behind ours, where he gets regular petting. He’s still hanging around so he should return home when he’s had enough freedom.