Friday, May 20, 2011

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis, change. It's never easy is it? Exciting, necessary, welcome sometimes. But never easy. Probably the person facing the most change in our little household right now is Marjory, who has come from her independent life in Cairns to live with us, her son and daughter in law. David and I have been gradually introducing her to this new life. This week she met her new GP and her new hairdresser, both very important people! She seems very happy with both, perhaps a bit of a surprise, even for her. We have also had interminable dealings with Centrelink. A bad moment when, after waiting in line for an aeon to see someone and submit our laboriously completed forms, she had left her I.D. at home and it would have to be submitted  again another day. But we think she is gradually settling in, eating well, sleeping well and going for walks on the golf course every day.  She is spontaneously starting to draw again, this is a good sign.


Every day we enjoy the birdlife from our new home. The list of species spottted grows. We see lorikeets, scaly breasted and rainbow, Australian miners, little wattlebirds; once, a spinebill. Today I spotted a black butcherbird off the rear deck, and on the golf course there is an endless variety. Marjory and I saw a beautiful kingfisher a couple of days ago. The nectar slurpers come for these - banksias. They are everywhere.



These photos were taken from our deck.

It's not just the banksias that grow big around here. Apart from the humungous cockroaches (eeech! gaaargh!) there are big creepy crawly things. Don't know what on earth this critter is, does anyone? Never seen anything like it.  I always imagined those cocoons you see everywhere contained a beautiful butterfly in the making.  But this one was so huge it must have been a potential small aeroplane. Perhaps for Tiger airlines? The cocoon was as long as a man's hand, and the beastie inside popped out and hoiked itself off the concrete and onto the grass, dragging its house along behind. Weird.





Metamorphosis. The word for today.
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3 comments:

  1. maeMay 21, 2011 at 1:35 PM

    http://www.oocities.org/brisbane_moths/LargeBagworm.htm

    That caterpillar is cool!!! Jealous :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. maeMay 21, 2011 at 1:36 PM

    http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/psyc/elong.html

    This is the life cycle, it's a moth, but a very interesting looking one! You should keep an eye on it and show it once it transforms :)

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  3. Susan Glenn-HumeMay 21, 2011 at 10:35 PM

    Wow! That's it all right. Thanks, Mae. You'll have to teach me how to go about finding unknown critters on the www. We'll keep an eye on it, hope it becomes a splendidly garish male and not the sluggy looking female.

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