Blue Gum by gum!

The featured photo is of a Sydney Blue Gum. Eucalyptus saligna to be exact.

He was planted about ten years ago and is now a very grand adolescent tree with a great future. I expect him to grow to about 50 metres which is a good height for a paddock tree.

I planted him down by my big dam as part of one of my mini-greening-the-paddocks push, along with some other species of Eucalyt.

Standing under this tree I see that it is full of life: insects buzzing around, ants climbing up and down, birds up high. It is a wonderful part of the farm ecosystem.

Down on the dam and in the reflection of this tree there live a range of water birds.

This year I was lucky enough to have the grebe family use my dam as their nesting area and nursery. The parents made their floating nest from bits of weed they had snipped off with their beaks under the water. Pieced them all together to achieve this amazing aqua nest upon which they laid their five eggs.

The dogs and I kept our distance not wanting to interfere nor worry the parents whilst they were sitting on the eggs.

I checked in on them from time to time with my binoculars.

After some weeks I was delighted to see that there were four babies duck-diving in the dam along with their parents.

The canine crew and I wandered down to have a closer look. Baby grebes scrambled onto their parent’s backs and they all floated around on the opposite side of the dam to us. (I had no idea that some water bird babies use their parent’s backs as floatation devices.)

Walking around the water’s edge I wanted to check out this floating nest structure and saw that there was still one egg left. The next day the egg was gone and baby grebe no. 5 had arrived!

Now some months later there is only one grebe left. Apparently they move on, usually at night, flying low to the ground, heading off to who knows where.

The ducks remain and so does the occasional egret.

And in the Blue Gum sit the Galahs and Rosellas. The insects buzz and the ants climb.