Wednesday, February 24, 2010

And I thought it was hot in January...

I'm not sure if it's made the news in the states, however Monday was the hottest night in 13 years. Yes I said 13 years!!!!!

Now add to that the humidity, lack of air conditioning, lack of bug screens (which means I get unwanted visitors at night), and you have a very unpleasant and restless nights sleep. :(

The upswing is that I'm going to Tasmania tomorrow evening and the high is 50F which will be much better than the heat we've been having. As always I'll take lots of pictures, and try to post the narratives.

My appologies on not posting the names of the cockatoos - however I've been working long hours and haven't been able to interact with them much. Call me old fashioned but I want their names to come to me from them. :)

Any who... it's a cool night and I'm off to try to get a good nights sleep.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

My new "Pets" and your challenge :)

When I moved into my new apartment/flat, it was very apparent that there is a different set of local wildlife, and more particularly birds. Being close to the harbour there are a number of different local birds, but the most popular ones are the cockatoos and laurakeets. Apparently, the last person in my room was feeding the laurakeets and had a local group which would come by often.

However, I've managed to attract bigger and better birds. There are a couple of cockatoos which have realised I keep sunflower seeds and will feed them if they come. They're extremely smart and a bit greedy, but not many people can say they have 'wild' birds as pets which will eat out of their hands. I say 'wild' because they are very socialised living in Sydney.

My challenge to you is to help me come up with names for them. :) Please comment on what names you think I should call them and my flatmate and I will choose from the lot. There may be a prize for whoever the makes the chosen suggestion.


Our two friends telling us they want food

One bird...

Two birds...

Now Rachelle (my flatmate) and I were becoming a bit suspicious as the birds were very greedy and seemed to ALWAYS be around... but tonight it all became clear. There are two sets of birds which come around!! Shortly after this picture the dominant pair proceeded to scare the others away and eat both sets of food I put out.

Three and four!!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Today I fought the ocean....

... and it won. :(

But I will not be discouraged and am taking this as a challenge for tomorrow. The weather for tomorrow's swim is not much better than today so I'm hoping this will scare many 4,500 people who are registered to swim. Today, however was meant to be a easy swim to simply get out in the water and move around a bit.

The swells were meant to be 8 ft today with rainy weather - tomorrow is meant to be only 6ft with the same weather. Fortunately (or so I'm told) the swells will be coming from the south so the beach we are swimming from will be sheltered. This is key because I typically end up having trouble in the massive waves coming into the beach and thrashing me around like a rag doll. Here are some pictures of the waves I attempted to swim in... hopefully the ocean isn't as pissed off tomorrow!

The View of North Bondi

South Bondi

Straight on... those waves look smaller than they actually are