Strawberries

Strawberry season in Australia starts in July when the farms in the warmer northern parts of the country start sending their fruit to market. It then continues until the following February as warmer weather heads south.
The height of the season seems to be August to October when the huge southern Queensland farms are at their peak production. Fruit quality is excellent and prices are cheap, around $4/kg.

Last year however disaster struck.
Someone was inserting needles into the berries.
This lead to consumers boycotting the product and farmers having to dump tonnes of fruit.
It sent many producers to the wall.

After an intense investigation police found the culprit (a disgruntled employee) and as well as a few copy catters and the industry put in protocols to stop this happening again eg. metal detectors.
Supposedly!

Yesterday we had reports that a needle had again been found.
What is wrong with people?
Last time we didn’t boycott, we just cut the berries to be sure they were safe.
Now we will start doing the same.

Spring Bushfires

The ongoing drought has left much of the country extremely dry.
During winter we experienced a higher than normal number of bushfires.
There were a few in our local area, some quite close.
Now in the first weeks of spring it seems like nearly the whole east coast of the country is on fire.

Currently 52 fires are burning in New South Wales with 18 uncontained.
Property has been lost.
Seventy fires are burning in Queensland, again with property loss.
Even rainforest areas are alight for the first time in living memory.
Sadly it seems some of these fires have been deliberately lit.

Thankfully, south of Sydney, we have been spared so far.
Days of high, dry winds that we have experienced over the last weeks would has caused unstoppable firestorms.
All this doesn’t augur well for summer when temperatures are forecasted to be higher than normal and rainfall minimal.

The Lyrebird

There are two species of the ground-dwelling lyrebird in Australia, the Superb and Albert's.
They are well known for the beauty of the male bird's huge tail when it is fanned out in courtship display and their ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment.
They are among Australia's best-known native birds.
The superb lyrebird is found in areas of rain forest in Victoria, New South Wales, and south-east Queensland. They are apparently in our area but have never seen one.
Albert's lyrebird is found only in a small area of Southern Queensland rain forest. 
They are shy and difficult to approach so not a lot information is known about their behaviour.
We know they feed on the ground and as individuals taking a range of invertebrates as prey including insects.
Lyrebirds are long-lived birds with a life span as long as thirty years. Female superb lyrebirds start breeding at the age of five or six, and males at the age of six to eight.
Males defend territories from other males. These may contain the breeding territories of up to eight females. Within the male territories, the males create or use display platforms. For the superb lyrebird, this is a simple mound of bare soil.
  

     Male and Female Lyrebirds 
 

On these mounds they sing and dance in courtship display for potential mates. The male lyrebird can have several. The female builds an untidy nest where she lays a single egg. The egg is incubated over 50 days solely by the female who also fosters the chick alone.
Lyrebirds sing throughout the year, but the peak of the breeding season, from June to August, is when they sing with the most intensity. During this peak they may sing for four hours of the day, almost half the hours of daylight. The song of the superb lyrebird is a mixture of elements of its own song and any number of other mimicked songs and noises. Lyrebirds mimic with great accuracy the individual songs of other birds and the chatter of flocks of birds as well as other animals such as koalas and dingoes. They are also capable of imitating almost any sound and have been recorded mimicking human sounds such as a mill whistle, a cross-cut saw, chainsaws, car engines and car alarms, fire alarms, rifle-shots, camera shutters, dogs barking, crying babies, music, mobile phone ring tones, and even the human voice. But while the mimicry of human noises is widely reported, the extent to which it happens tends to be exaggerated and the phenomenon is unusual.
If this video doesn't play, try this link and this one
As a young boy, my family used to drive up into the Dandenong ranges behind Melbourne for picnics. We could always hear these birds (along with many others) and sometimes see one. Sixty years on this area is now well developed and the bird's habitat has suffered accordingly.
The lyrebird has been featured as a symbol and emblem many times.
It is on the reverse of the Australian 10-cent coin.

A stylized superb lyrebird appears in the transparent window of the Australian 100 dollar note.
A silhouette of a male superb lyrebird is the logo of the Australian Film Commission.
An illustration of a male superb lyrebird, in courtship display, is the emblem of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.