Look Wut I Got! (Scroller and Photo)

[monstersinthedungeon]

This is Screech.

For the last couple of months we've had a very diligent Tawny Frogmouth pair sitting on their nest close to the house.  We've watched with anticipation and were finally rewarded by seeing a little bundle of fluff popping his head out of the nest.

Then last weekend - DRAMA - I walked outside to see a massive monitor making his way towards the Tawny tree.  Screamed at hubby to come and help, we tried to avert disaster, but the monitor was way too fast for us and scaled the tree.  

Mumma Tawny was very panicked, as the monitor came closer to the nest she flew off into a nearby tree.  She gave me a look of absolute desperation HELP ME! (yes, she did!) but the nest/monitor were way too high for us to do anything.  Hubby tried to throw things at the monitor, but I stopped him as the monitor's life is no less precious than the chicks - I didn't want to see the monitor get toppled out of the tree and hurt or killed.  Plus hubby damn near hit my car with a rock. ;\

I put some eggs around the base of the tree so the monitor could see them, in a vain attempt to lure him away from the chick.  We had to go out briefly, so wished the Tawnys good luck.  Alas, when we came back, the nest was empty :_|

Went about our afternoon chores when suddenly I spotted baby Tawny!  Sitting on the ground next to the tractor.  We dropped everything, made him a makeshift nest and put it up in the tree, then caught him and put him in the nest.  We saw Mumma and Pappa Tawny watching nearby.

Cut down a long story, Bubba kept jumping out of his nest over the next three days and Mumma and Pappa abandoned him, so the decision was made to bring him inside to keep him safe from both the monitors and our dogs. (our four young ones would kill him). 

He will be released as soon as he can fly properly and learn to catch his own bugs (I am catching them for him at the moment).  He's all puffed up and hating me in the photo, that's a good thing, we don't want him imprinting on us. He's feeding really well though (I hate you, I hate you, yum, yum, more please, I still hate you). 

[monstersinthedungeon]

Thanks for all the extra suggestions 😄

Bundy was a good one; unfortunately can't be used as my first live-in boyfriend and I had a dog together and her name was Bundy. It's a great name and suited her so well, but I don't like reusing names.

Little fella finally has a name; almost a week after arriving.

He is Squiddy Wiggles; Squid for short.

Squiddy Wiggles is cute when he is little, Squid will suit him when he gets older.

Well that's his name today, anyway. Our animals have a habit of being given a name which then gets changed completely over time.

[j*oono]

Squiddy Wiggles.  I love it 😄

[freddie*rooster]

What about Snow 😄

[tasfleur]

How is Squid settling in Monsters?  What a great name, love it ...  :^O

... and Mr. Screech, the camels, the turtle?

[monstersinthedungeon]

Hi Tas :-x and all the Screechers :-x

Freddie, Snow is exactly the kind of name my mum would come up with 😛

We have a cat called Willow - it's striped, so of course it should be named "Tiger". Charlie with the patch over his eye should be called "Spot" or "Patch" according to mother!

Squid's settled in really really well. He's got the cutest little personality, really full of beans and bounce. He is almost completely toilet trained in only little over a week - goes outside on command and whinges when he needs to go outside. If the door's open he will just take himself outside to toilet.

He sleeps in his bed right beside the head of my bed and sleeps right through the night, then wakes me up with a little whinge early in the morning to get lifted up into bed for cuddles. We sleep about another hour with him snuggled up next to me and then everyone gets up for toilet and brekie and start the rounds of feed and watering all the outside critters.

We've had a few dramas with Alice (the camel) jumping over the paddock fence last week, every morning she's standing at the gate waiting to be let back into the paddock - for some reason she can figure out how to get out of the paddock, but not back in, silly critter. Fortunately hubby has now reinforced the fence and hopefully no more issues - I have terrible visions of her careering off down the road or over the neighbour's paddocks.

Screech is still just lovely, still feeding him morning and night and getting lots of lovely cuddles from him. A couple of nights ago he flew into the lounge room window, fortunately he was not hurt and flew off again after a few pats from me. We think he must have been trying to get inside to me. Hopefully he will find a mate soon and that will lessen his attachment to me. It's a shame he's nocturnal, because if he was diurnal I could bring him inside at night to keep him safe, but of course that's his flying around time, so I just have to trust he will be okay.

[beanishells]

Very nice thread 🙂

I have only had my garden a short while but a Blue Wren and his three hens have adopted it already. I just had my cuppa and then lunch. We have a big kitchen window overlooking the new garden and were watching them darting about the bushes and eating their grubs and insects> its on a daily basis now and I find great joy in the fact that this little environment I have created is attracting birds that feel safe in my garden. 🙂

[j*oono]

Monsters, I hope you are keeping a copy of all your posts because they are so pleasant to read. One day it would make a wonderful book.

Sort of like a Marley and Me type one but with more pets 😄

[tasfleur]

Great idea Joono, with lots of pictures it would be wonderful and I'd certainly be the first to get a copy of it .. :-x

[monstersinthedungeon]

Beani, it's so lovely watching all the wildlife, isn't it. Your little wren family sound lovely. Mr Wren must be kept very busy with three wives! :^O  I get such an enormous amount of pleasure watching all the critters (both domestic and wild) around this place.

We are lucky enough to occasionally get a kangaroo in the bottom paddock, that's always a thrill for me. When we first moved in we didn't have many birds at all, I suspect it must have been something to do with the floods (property was flooded in 2011), the only birds we had were magpies. Slowly, slowly they are coming over more and more.

On Sunday we had a small flock of black cockatoos up in a nearby tree. The Kookaburras have started to come around, as well as tiny, tiny, tiny little finches, almost no bigger than a bumble bee. My lemon tree has seven finch nests in it - clever little birds, the lemon tree has such nasty big thorns they are perfectly safe there. They are cheeky too; one night I went out to get a lemon for the fish I was cooking - it was dark and I had a torch. Mr Finch came out of one of the nests and gave me a very good telling off!  I picked my lemon as quickly as I could, offered a sincere apology to Mr Finch and retreated hastily!

Joono, what a lovely thing to say, thank you! I have copied all of this thread despite my computer's best protests, I'm hoping to incorporate some of it into my (new) blog. One day I'd love to write a book, even if no-one but family (and Tas! :^O ) read it.

Tas, I will make sure you're first on my list when and if I ever get published. Need to get a new camera though, it's rubbish and I'm a rubbish photographer, so at least if I had a good camera my photos would only be half rubbish!

[freddie*rooster]

I so enjoy catching up on your thread monsters, and I love your Mum's thinking :^O