Spring is a wonderful time to be a volunteer at the beautiful Tilligerry Habitat. Ian and I man the information centre there every Sunday and Ian also administers the website and Facebook page. It has started to get quite busy there lately, I suspect this is partly because it was featured on TV as part of Sydney Weekender's coverage of Port Stephens but I like to think Ian's efforts to increase the web presence has helped too, he puts some excellent photos on Facebook and has gathered quite a number of followers. 

What used to be a relaxing day sitting on the deck reading or taking it in turns to go off into the bush and snap some wildlife in between talking to the occasional guest has turned in to a full on work day the last couple of weekends with over fifty visitors coming through each day, we enjoy it though and it is great to see people appreciating the place.

 The resident flora and fauna give excellent value at this time of year, koalas are on the move looking for mates so are more likely to be seen and the birds, lizards and butterflies put on a real show. Most birds are either nesting or have young chicks, like the Eastern Yellow Robin in the picture and the native plants are offering up plenty of food for the Honeyeaters, there are over 60 different types of honeyeater and the one pictured is a White Cheeked Honeyeater.

I am not very good at identifying birds yet and lot of those we see around here have yellow on them and look similar so I have to keep referring to my bird book to find out what I have seen. 

There was a koala quite near the information centre yesterday, they don't move much so if one is in a position where we can't get a very good photo for Ian to use, we take it in turns to go back to it every hour or so to see if it has got itself into a more photogenic pose.  Yesterday's koala was particularly tricky so I was setting off to check on it when the biggest Brown Snake imaginable shot across the path in front of me! It must have been 5 feet long and moved incredibly quickly. The Brown Snake is one of Australia's deadliest creatures and believe me, we have a few but they are up there near the top of the 'most dangerous' list. As I ran puffing and sweating into the visitors centre babbling about seeing the biggest Brown Snake in the world Ian asked, "Did you get a picture of it?" 

Spring has also seen me attempting to grow some veggies again. I had a go last year but as we live on sand I wasn't very successful, so this year Ian has put his carpentry skills to good use again and built me some raised beds to give the veggies a decent depth of compost to grow in. So far everything is growing and we are looking forward to being self sufficient in the green grocery department quite soon. Apparently tomatoes and onions can be grown all year round here so I am hoping to be able to stagger the crops a bit and not have a situation like my Dad used to where he would keep the whole village supplied with tomatoes and cucumbers for a few weeks then have none for the rest of the year. 

After the success of the bike shed Ian made from pallets, the car returned home with this lot on top the other day so I am hoping this means a garden shed is on the cards.