|
Main /
Mar2017Weather diary page Istachatta March 6: Temperatures have been more seasonal with nighttime lows in the mid 50's and daytime highs in the 70's. Overall very pleasant. Most all trees are in some early stage of budding. Still no snakes, few mosquitoes. Istachatta Mar 11: Lightning bugs are out. Istachatta Mar 13: The tussock moth caterpillars started appearing a few days ago, and now they're out in force. This is two months ahead of last year, when they were out in May. This must be the result of the unusually warm weather we had in late February and early March. A cold blast of air is coming in. It's supposed to get down near freezing in a couple days, so that might take care of them. Istachatta Mar 25: The Tussock Moth Caterpillar is out in force. It has been for a couple weeks but they just get heavier and heavier. It seems even worse than last here. See this pic. That is everywhere. Istachatta Mar 28: Tussock Moth Caterpillars are still out in force but seem to have reached their peak. Numbers are very slowly declining. A small herd of deer passed right under our bedroom window last night around 12:30AM. I saw six and I'm guessing there were at least 8, maybe many more. I heard a rustling and thought it was an armadillo, peaked out and saw one deer walk by, then another, and another, just taking their time. Just saw our resident Gopher Tortoise for the first time this season. Didn't actually see him, just the results of his/her digging -- spurts of sand coming out the burrow. Hitting mid 80s today but quite comfortable. Forgot to note the return of the Swallow-Tailed Kite, which is the most beautiful bird I've ever seen. We spotted the first one 8 or 10 days ago, then 2 days ago I got a real good show -- a pair gliding in circles at low elevation right over the green house/garden as I was out there getting some veggies in the morning. Spectacular birds. Taidong, Mar 29: Reasonable rainfall for March - especially the second half - typically light drizzle - not tank filler stuff - in fact the chicken shed tank still hasn't gotten even 1/8 full since the earthquake broke the pipes in mid-Dec and have had to replenish the big tanks several times from the bore water. Ku ling tree was very late blooming - around mid-March, but is going strong now. Nightjars have been pretty sedated this year though several rufous tits (?). Thankfully, it was a very subdued fruit fly year - maybe to do with it being so dry - whereas usually there's several weeks where you need to cover your glass of red wine with a tissue in resting position lest it get full of fruit fly - as a friend pointed out - it's interesting that we love the same food as fruit flies, and cockroaches - rotten ('fermented' is the polite word) fruit - this year that tissue-protocol wasn't needed. I'd assumed that they got out of control coz birds would peck holes in the tomatoes and that was their 'in' and then they just bred from there - but there was a flock of 5-color birds feasting Early March as well as squirrels - taking a bite out of one and then moving onto another - and there were fruit-fly on the pecked ones - but they never exploded like previous years. A few very mild local earthquakes in the last couple of weeks - you wouldn't give them a second thought - if it wasn't for the Dec event. First yellow firefly tonight. King low-tide today. Saw a civet cross the road near my house and mongoose near Tim's house - but no attacks on chicken so far this season - though a hawk did get off with a chick and made other unsuccessful attacks. Cat 4 cyclone in mid-north Qld - pretty late Mar 31: Saw first snake'''. A bit of light rain - just on dusk - which is basically 'be aware' conditions, on the steps down to the chicken house - wasn't there when i walked down, or didn't see it, but it was right in the stepping zone when i came back up - didn't rear up exactly but twerked me several times and didn't seem to feel like it had to scurry off, which is a sign that it was probably venomous - non-descript colour - light brown with darker brown stripes, though there did seem to be one black hoop towards the head Mar 30 Istachatta: Tussock Moth Caterpillars finally seem to have stopped exploding. Just today. All at once, activity has ceased after about a month of misery. No more crawling off me when I come inside. Coincidentally, it just started getting hot, mid to high 80s, with nights in high 50s to low 60s. All in all very nice weather. It's a dry spring with no substantial rain since we got back the first of February. No real need to cut the grass yet. |
