The Donga and its denizens at 28 Thompson Street

Here’s the front garden of my new home, the Donga, at 28 Thompson Street, Park Avenue. Three dwellings occupy the block, the other two being the huge converted Shed I used to live in and an ordinary House.

And, yes, that is a swimming pool. There’s a Thai flag because the landlady who used to live here is from Thailand. However, the flag pole rattled like crazy in the wind at night, so I’ve taken it down. The window on the far right is the kitchen, the one on the far left is the computer room where I’m typing this.

This is the central bedroom, formerly a donga or moveable mining site office that forms the core of the dwelling..

And this is the view out of the visitors’ bedroom at the back of the house overlooking trees and a seasonal watercourse. Ibis nest in these trees.

The kitchen also looks out over trees and …

It has a proper stove with a real oven that works.

There are verandas, wide or narrow, on three sides. The gate on the right gives access to wooden steps that lead down to the back garden and the chook yard.

When I mow the front lawn, various birds like this rather timid Peaceful Dove come to help themselves to whatever insects they can find.

Willy Wagtail isn’t as shy as the dove. In fact, he’s bold as brass once he hears that mower going,

This Magpie Lark is just as fearless and is marching into battle with a most determined air.

Round the back of the Donga is the chooks’ playground, all enclosed by a six foot high wire fence. Here they are being hand-fed. From right to left: Ebony and then King Lear’s three daughters, Cordelia, Regan and Goneril.

At night they roost on a very high painter’s trestle. Regan on the right and Cordelia on the left are at the bottom of the pecking order and therefore have to sleep on a low rung. Goneril roosts above them and Ebony, boss chook, has the top position. Except that sometimes …

“And what, Madame, do you think you are doing up here on my rung?”

“Roosting.”

“Well, I suppose I might let you stay, just for tonight. But don’t go getting any smart ideas. Remember who’s who round here.”

In the kitchen five juvenile finches live together in a green cage. Here are four of them, the two Gouldians, Dominique on the left, and Gabriel(le), and two of the three Zebra finches. The Zebras don’t yet have names. We don’t yet know the sex of Dominique and Gabriel(le) which is why they have names that can be for males or females.

This is an earlier shot of the Gouldians when Gabriel(le?) was just starting to get his/her purple chest. We don’t know if they will finish up with red or black faces; red I suspect,

It’s rare that the three Zebras are together because one or other of then will be off practising their acrobatics. Here one of them is taking off. The boss one has the darkest black mark under his/her eye.

The one on the left here has the lightest line under his/her eyes

Other finches, wild ones, come visiting in flocks to feast on grass seed.

Many other wild birds are to be seen in the front garden or, as here, in the trees at the back of the house. (A female Figbird possibly??????????)

Sometimes quite big birds. A female Koel perhaps???? I’m certain I’ve heard a Koel calling recently. I suspect this one helped herself to a couple of chook eggs one morning. However, I could be misjudging her; it could have been a snake or goanna who took them.

This chappie is going to get trodden on one night: his favourite place to sit in the dark is on the steps leading from the garden up to the back door though in this shot he’s posing on the back veranda. With those finger pads, he can walk up glass windows

Here is one of our Gekkos. This one lives just behind the computer by day. With his pads, he can walk across the ceiling.

After nightfall he goes outside to hunt for insects to eat, particularly the ones that are attracted by the light to the insect screen.

Gekko didn’t get this moth.

Nor this one.

She’s certainly got a very long tongue

Cicadas with their three sets of eyes provide us with musical entertainment.

In the big tree above the chook pen there are green ants’ nests, and sometimes a nest falls down and then the ants look for somewhere to build a new one. I caught these ones trying to take over a four foot tree in the middle of the chook yard. They’re busy gluing the leaves together to start their nest.

I interrupted their building and used vigourous persuasion to get them to move on and build elsewhere.

Finally, here are some water lillies growing in the watercourse behind the house. Ducks would love it.