The prolonged dry spell — 'dry season' actually meaning something this year — has left the rainforest birds with few options when it comes to bathing. Whereas the turkeys make do with shuffling dust through their feathers, those species with more (ahem) dignity prefer to use the bird bath. Grey-headed robins, Lewin's honeyeaters and bridled honeyeaters are now forced to share 'their' water with Atherton scrubwrens (which bathe as a group) and eastern whipbirds (which are such enthusiastic dippers that I have to refill the bath several times per bird).
Emerald doves, brown cuckoo-doves and Victoria's riflebirds drop by to drink bath water during the day. At night, long-nosed bandicoots stand with their front feet in the bowl and spend minutes lapping it up. It might not be a waterhole on the Serengeti, but at least I'm not in danger of encountering a lion. I'm not so confident about dropbears.
– o – O – o –
Sometimes a brush turkey will follow me so closely when I take rubbish down to the bin that it runs into my leg. I don't think many other people have this problem.
– o – O – o –
A huntsman spider made the mistake of taking up residence under the sofa. Now it is covered in so much dust that it looks like an eight-legged angora rabbit. I tried to un-dust it, but it's not easy tidying up a large aggro spider. I suppose it's the arachnid equivalent of mum spitting on the hanky. I might try cleaning under the furniture instead.
