Now You See Me

New week, and I’m away from home for the week. Travelled up to the family acres. This is an exercise  of sitting in a fast moving car and waiting while the miles, (kilometres) roll by.   Long straight roads with not much else to see but the road, and the horizon, and the blue sky.  Didn’t we already pass that 105 km post?

And today’s Blogging exercise is to find a prompt (Bloggsville provides them), and so we come to Now you see me, now you Don’t. Thought it was appropriate for being on the road again.

Stopped as is our want at The Eaglehawk Bakery to enjoy a “Mulga Bill’s” Pie for lunch.  One thing I guess that has changed a bit over .the past twelve months or so it that I’ve had to reduce my diet from pies, and all those lovely carbs, and concentrate on ‘healthy’ food.  But, hey its a long road to the family acres and a pie is just the right thing.  Also picked up a Banana milkshake.  This is starting to sound like a Facebook foodaholic journal.

The days before we left, we were watching a pair of White-plumed Honeyeaters.  This clever pair had built a nest among the leaves over the river.

It’s funny as I’ve written to this before, just recently, about now you see me now you don’t. While EE was busy working with a  Wagtail pair, (and I stay away as it doesn’t need two humans in their space), I was watching a White-plumed Honeyeaters.  Something about the extra intensity of their actions said, “They have a nest somewhere.”  And while I looked here, and there and over there too, no sign did I see of their location.  The following day had us at the same spot, and this time I moved about 50m down the river.  Again time passed.  The Honeyeaters passed and the mystery deepened, Finally I got a glimpse of them moving back and forth from a branch stretching over the river and it was even more obvious that is where they were working.  And down at the end of some leaves over the water, tightly fitted in among the reeds was their deliciously wound, spider web and grass globe.  But so far out over the water as to be very safe from most prying eyes.  And being in the leaves, it was really impossible to get a good view.

So, I waited.  And as the pair moved back and forth with food, I was able to get at least a look at the opening and occasionally as it all swung back and forth in the breeze a glimpse of little heads inside.

Then the mystery deepened, or more accurately my observations became more detailed.   She had sited the nest opening in such a way that a leaf was being used as a ‘trapdoor’ to conceal the opening.

Here was a bird with a super sense of security.  The older leaf lay perfectly over the nest opening and made it almost impossible to see that there was a nest down there.

Then she would fly in, push the leaf to one side, feed the young, and then on leaving she would pick the leaf up and place it back over the hole! If both birds arrived at about the same time, the last one leaving would cover over the nest.

Now you see me.  Now you don’t.  How appropriate.

Several days later the first of the brood had clambered out of the nest and was clinging tightly to the top of the nest.  And while we were watching a second one also made its first tentative ventures out of the nest.

By the time we get back, they will be well on the wing.