09 June 2009

Swans are breeding

The beautiful Black Swan, Cygnus atratus, is breeding in the pools of the wetlands below our place. Hundreds of breeding pairs, black necks poking above the grass. So much rain.

2 comments:

Patch said...

Hi Amplitur,
Lots of rain... isn't it great! It's also nice when you get to be somewhere with a bit of wildlife around the place. What did you do for your dams? Did you simply dig a hole and let them fill, or was there some trick to getting the water to stay in place? Or was it something to do with the ground (e.g. was it extra 'clayey')?
I'm just back from a week in Darwin, holidaying with the family. Crocs, fishing, crabbing, had a hoot.

Amplitur said...

Darwin is awesome. Well our first two dams were already there, and have never been empty (well once after Christmas about two years ago - see entry "cows emptied our dam"). The third dam got dug by an excavator before last Christmas. it took a while to fill. We thought it might have been draining through the soil. But after it got baked in the summer sun, the first heavy rain filled it and it's stayed filled. So I think the soil permeability hardened with time in the sun.