Southern Summer Solstice and looking back at a Strange Spring.

 

`Solstice' (Latin: `solstitium') means `sun stopping' (and changing) as we celebrate the longest day.

For the English, summer starts on 21st June unlike us in Australia who consider the first day of December to be the beginning of serious heat; sun, surf and beaches; Christmas and summer holidays.

But I'd like to look backwards today, and think about the odd spring we've had.

 

It's been an extraordinary spring; every plant singing and so many birds and animals doing their spring thing in overdrive, from honey eaters (along with the usual suspects) collecting spider webs from under the veranda roof for making their nests (I've never see this before - usually they are `just' supping nectar from the correas and salvias, constantly) to wallabies boxing, and J's  straw hat used again, by scrub wrens for nesting.

We have a new resident: a kookaburra has decided - rightly - that the garden at Possum Creek is full of food (like the skinks we love) and magpies strut the little lawn. Both have such character and purpose.

Wood ducks spend a day or two at our dam before marching on, ducklings following closely behind. Also called maned geese, they are handsome and prolific (not rare, anyhow) so I don't worry about them (will dogs get to them? Foxes?) but can just enjoy these frequent visits.

Our resident wallaby has her usual joey, head just out, both grazing grass and indigenous herbs.

And what's spring without some new chicks? Yes, Freddie (above) got clucky again and, after an egg-free winter, we decided to add to our half-dozen strong flock of bantams. Does she think that she's a clever hen, just sitting on one egg for 2 days before 2 chicks, 3 days old, miraculously appear under her at night? And do the other hens think `Her again? - not fair'!

It may sound like I'm anthropomorphalising terribly, but Freddie seems happy being a mumma (and it snaps her out of her broodiness) and the chicks seem much happier, or more settled. Under a hot light they wanted to dive under each other's wings; now they have big wings to shield them - the natural way of things (and - who knows? More comforting). They also cheeped, it seemed, in distress more; now any sharp cries (`I'm cold') make Freddie sit down and fluff up her eiderdown so the chicks can dive under at once. Such a good mumma.

Now we have to figure out good names for the cute chicks. (How the heck do parents of real children get through this thorny problem?)

Our silver chick is developing fluffy slippers and the other's new coat is a rusty-rufus colour - so Fluffy and Rusty they are becoming. I love ridiculous names for the hens, so cat and dog names are not only tickling the funny bone gently, but also the 2 who arrived together have similar - or similarly absurd - names.

 

The flower power this spring has been stunning, both flowers in the garden and blooms of wild plants in the bushland, on our property and around my area in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne. Wattles, tea trees (see first pic)...covered, prolifically, in flowers (now or earlier).

But why - The `dry' winter? The cool spring with it's odd hot days?

I always like an explanation for weird events in the natural world but here I think I'm going to just sit back and enjoy the show - enormously.

Jill Weatherhead is horticulturist, writer, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, and works throughout Victoria. (www.jillweatherheadgardendesign.com.au)