Australian Thoughts at the Weekend - 5th and 6th September 2009.

Australian Thoughts at the Weekend - 5th and 6th September 2009.

It’s Spring!

The 1st September is spring here in Australia. I live in one of those places where the change is seen on the calendar more than in nature. Our home is surrounded by trees on the hills in the distance but none of them regain their leaves in spring because they kept them all winter. The snows do not melt or the ice thaw because here at my home in the beautiful Gold Coast City we don’t have snow or ice. The lawns around our home have not been browned by the frosts but by the lack of rain. Rain is forecast and we are hoping we will get enough to turn the lawns green.

Our garden has been suffering from the lack of rain and the heavy restrictions on watering from the town water supply. We do however have some lovely azaleas which add colour. The centre garden is supposed to be dominated by purple flowering tibouchinas but two gave up. I think it was lack of water which caused their demise.
A camellia planted at the same time has not grown as quickly but this year has given us a number of beautiful white flowers.

The garden along the fence has four hibiscus flowers which have bloomed prolifically during winter until they were pruned. They do not stop flowering so flowers are sacrificed by pruning. A tea tree is absolutely covered in flowers. Each flower is only a little more than a half inch (1.5cm) across but the huge number of the delicate pink flowers make a nice display.

A lavender bush is flowering well and will give its perfume to anyone who squeezes a flower between their fingers. A “fruit salad” coloured frangipani, is about to flower I always look forward to this as it was a cutting from the garden of my mother’s now non-existent house.

The back garden has given a lot of tasty fruit in the past months. The harvest has included pawpaws, oranges, numerous lemons and about 50 mandarins. This is not too bad for a garden which is only four years old. The citrus trees have already burst into new growth and are already a mass of buds and blooms. This year we will have to wait for passionfruit as the vine is just recovering from a very drastic pruning.

We are watching three strawberry plants under the lemon tree. They have flowered and have small fruit on them. We think a bird sitting in the lemon tree must have made a deposit which included the seed after feasting on a neighbour’s strawberries. Two of the plants are runners from the first plant.

We have a couple of pair of magpies that live around our place. They are black and white birds a little bigger than pigeons and with a more upright stance. Mr and Mrs Maggie will no doubt will raise some young before the heat of summer arrives.

Nesting magpies have a reputation for attacking anyone who passes their nesting site. They particular seem to like the postman on his small motorbike as he delivers the mail. Also children walking and anyone on pushbikes are a great target for attack. Those who have been attacked say their long hard beaks hurt. It is not uncommon to see people with an empty ice cream plastic tub on their head, often with two large eyes drawn on the back of it. It provides an inexpensive alternative target to the wearer’s own face and eyes.

The latest fashion for cyclists is to use cable ties fastened through the breather holes in their compulsory helmets. The end of the cable ties look like antennae sprouting from the helmet. However these antennae seem to deter the maggies from swooping to close.

It seems another way to prevent attack is to feed the magpies regularly. We do this. We offer just a few pieces of crusts of bread when they come to our patio. We also have a water dish available to them at all times. At our last home, just a few kilometres away, another Mrs Maggie was particularly friendly and would take food from very close to us and if the back door is open will come right in and call for food. There however, Mrs Maggie did the nest duties and dad magpie called very regularly for food. It seems too, that he prefers to dig worms and grubs from out of our lawn. Nature researchers say that magpies will only eat handouts of up to 16% of their total intake of food. In the days when food is being demanded he loves the bread and other handouts and gathers them in his beak before flying off to the nest. He soon returns to gather another beak full to take back to the nest.

At our present home we have magpies, a couple of peewees (mudlarks) come and go as do some willy wagtails. I have also seen a currawong or two and of course countless crows. A couple of doves which regularly clean up seed around my bird aviary (which houses zebra finches, canaries and king quail) have recently been joined by up to 20 double-bar finches. I love the little blue wrens which I have only seen two or three times in my garden and I hope these tiny insect eaters will return soon.

Large and small honeyeaters feed on the nectar from blooms on small trees just over our back fence. When these trees are blooming prolifically rainbow lorikeets (a honey eating parrot) noisily feed on the nectar.

Some weeks ago my wife called me to come quickly. Three sulphur crested cockatoos were sitting on our fence about 20 feet from our back door. Their white feathers seemed almost to glow and their yellow crests bobbed up and down. Then one of them bent down and picked a large green passionfruit. He then flew off with it, closely followed by his two friends. Son after this we picked the remaining passionfruit and the vine was pruned.

I have always been fascinated by birds. There are so many questions we can and have asked. Men have been intrigued since the earliest days by their ability to fly. As we discover how they do this, it becomes even more intriguing and wonderful how they are made. We wonder at the ability of some to migrate huge distances, across oceans and large land masses. However, we can wonder too at the breeding instinct in birds. How do they know when, how and whereto build their nest? How do they know who should do what as to brooding and rearing duties? How is it that with magpies, it is the father who defends the nesting territory and who constantly provides food to the hungry mouths?

Some of these questions are no doubt in Jesus mind as in the Sermon on the Mount he says “Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds”. (Matthew 6:16 The Message).

The third verse of “Praise my soul, the King of Heaven” gives further comment and is a statement of trust:

Father-like he tends and spares us;
Well our feeble frame he knows,
In his hands he gently bears us,
Rescues us from all our foes.
Praise him!
Widely as his mercy flows.
[Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) The Salvation Army Song Book Song: 017 ]

Spring is a time of renewal. Renewal is not looking back but pushing ahead trusting God, our Heavenly Father.

This Sunday (6th September) is Father’s Day in Australia and I am sure in other places as well. May God bless all fathers and bless us as we remember them.
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