News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 81

Well the storms and rain claimed casualties sadly. Our neighbour called late Thursday afternoon and asked if we knew the Wildlife Rescue number as they had found a baby owl under a bush in the front garden.

We gave them the number to ring and they ended up taking it into a vet in town and given to a specialist carer.

The little one appeared in good health other than being a bit underweight. We think it may have been down on the ground for a couple of days for it to be underweight as the parents work hard to keep the food up to their babies.

So on Friday we went to see if we could find the nest and the parents. They were about 10m up one of the trees in our front yard but there wasnt much left of the nest…….. and they had another baby too!

Seems theyd taken a battering in the winds and rain.

Tawny Frogmouths are often confused with owls, but are actually more closely related to the nightjars. Their feet are weak however, and lack the curved talons of owls.They get their names from their wide and large beak .

The displaced baby will be cared for until it has gained weight and can fly, then more than likely will be brought back and released.

The baby still hear must be flying as the last couple of days has see it in different trees each day.

Once again this week Mother Nature has been keeping us on our toes. Weve just broken the October rainfall record of all time for our region. On 14th October it started with 55mm.

It continued on the 15th with 22mm, followed by 163mm on the 17th, 92mm on the 18th and 24mm on the 19th totalling a massive 356mm!!

Warnings had been out for a week prior that this weather event was forecast with high rainfall totals for the Fraser Coast region and as much as the rain was desperately needed, no one really thought it would happen as the local joke around here is that we live under a dome and storms and rain usually dont make it to the coast.

This time the forecasts were correct and it delivered. Although we are getting showers today, the sun has also made an appearance which with the wind will help dry it up a little before the next round of rain arrives over the coming weekend.

The 8 day outlook is for an accumulated amount of another 50 to 100mm of rain. Even the kangaroos were looking for somewhere to hide to get out of the driving rain. Although the little fellow in the picture tried to hide behind a tree, he really had no protection as it was heavy driving rain in very squally conditions.

We are fortunate to live on the highest part of our area so fortunately no flood but we did have a few rivers flowing around the house and we also now have half a dam wall from the neighbours dam (where the dam overflowed and washed all the dirt and rocks etc into our property) in the bottom of our back paddock.

Roads were closed around town but for now all open again. The rain has moved further north and there is major flooding just to the north of us as the rain sat stationery and dumped in excess of 400 to 500mm in places.

Well although we are in our fire season, Mother Nature has decided that she doesnt want to play nice. Our wet season doesnt start in earnest till late January when we should get plenty of rain and we are also then into cyclone season.

But last Monday 2nd October, Mother Nature decided to just be a bit different and give us a good old summer storm……… and she decided to throw a tornado into the mix.

In fact although people have labelled it a tornado, it was actually a waterspout that made landfall. Tornadoes arent common in Australia but waterspouts are often seen out over the bay and rarely make landfall.

It started in the straight between Fraser Island and the mainland (eastern side of Fraser Island) and came onto land at the bottom of Turtle Cove (River Heads), went along the foreshore then turned west and tore through several streets damaging houses.

The one good thing is a lot of its journey was through a reserve but it didnt spare fences on properties with a lot of fence panelling being relocated either in peoples yards, or in the cow paddock nearly a kilometre away.

The brigade was called out at 6pm on Monday night and worked into the night going house to house accounting for residents and recording damage.

Trying to write details on wet paper with wet hands in the pouring rain by torchlight is an interesting adventure!

Fortunately no reported injuries, all residents accounted for although several residents had to be relocated with their properties not habitable.

The only things unaccounted for was a guinea pig cage with 3 guinea pigs that had blown away when the balustrade of one property was blown off.

Only one was found alive the next day. Again the brigade worked all the next day ensuring peoples safety and cleaning up. We have more rain forecast for this weekend with the possibility of severe storms.

So with Mother Nature behaving the way she is, we arent too sure what shes going to throw at us next, more rain or another very dry spell with fires.

Last week we had an unwelcome visitor in the form of a 8ft Carpet Python thinking he was going to have a good feast as he came into our shed.

It is the time of the year as the weather heats up that snakes are on the move looking for food and a mate.

We have an area that we have christened The Pussy Palace, where our cats get locked up at night time or when we arent home.

I dont like leaving pets in the house as they tend to hunt the wildlife at night and also should there be a house fire they have no means of escape, so we have built an area that has an indoor and outdoor area where they are safe.

They love I and will go in by themselves even when we are home and curl up in their beds and go to sleep.

There are 2 doors (like an airlock) and the walls are mesh with the inner wall made of snake mesh from the floor to about 3ft high but a bigger mesh on the top.

The outer wall was just the bigger mesh. Hubby was out getting the bird seed to feed our wildbirds that come in the afternoons when he noticed the broom wasnt where it should be.

He pushed it back and the broom moved again and as he looked down saw the tail end of a snake slither in behind a washing machine that we wash the cat bedding in.

He got the torch and found a carpet snake curled up. As I have a total fear of snakes, although pythons are not venomous, they do tend to wrap themselves around their food and strangle them before eating.

It dawned on me that my 3 old kitties probably were on his menu as while most snakes wont climb mesh (well the venomous ones), this fellow could well manoeuvre itself to stand up enough to get through the wire mesh at the top.

I immediately called the local snake catcher to come out and get it so it could be relocated well away from our area.

The whole area that our kitties have is now fully snake meshed to prevent any other snake with ideas of Kitty Pie for dinner from getting in.

Our 2017/18 fire season has well and truly begun. Sunday 10th Sept crews from our station headed out early to do a Hazard Reduction Burn at Kingfisher Resort.

We were on the first barge over in the morning with 2 vehicles to head over to our station at Kingfisher Resort . (Our brigade has a station on the mainland and one on Fraser Island) Our plan was to do the HRB as soon as we could and make sure it was safe before leaving it in the hands of the Grounds staff at Kingfisher.

We lit up around 7.30am and by midday it was safe enough to hand over. We headed down to get some lunch before getting the 2pm barge back to the mainland.

Great, we thought, that all went well and we looked forward to a relaxing 45min trip back to the mainland.

The First Officer called Firecom (our communications centre) to let them know our movements and was then asked if when the crews got off the barge they could head straight out to Eli Creek as there was a going fire and they needed crews.

So our trip back to the mainland was spent reorganising trucks and crews for all vehicles to head out and watching the smoke plume grow.On landing we headed to the station, recommissioned the trucks with drinking water and changed crews and headed out.

We were met with a very smokey, fastmoving fire and were tasked to go to the western side and start backburning.

Backburning means burning out fuel ahead of the main fire so (the idea is) once the firefront hits the burnt stuff it has nowhere to go.

This fire had other ideas and started new fires with spotting. Our mission was successful overall though and we headed home around 9pm that night. Then Monday 11th Sept saw us called out at 1.30pm to a fire at Burrum Heads.

We knew straight away we were going to have to work hard as previous fires in years past have always meant fires in the area, due to the vegetation type, have been challenging.

We werent wrong! Fire on both sides of the main road, dozens of houses in the direct line of the fire and almost 12 months of no substantial rain in that kind of vegetation meant a long shift ahead.

Around 700 hectares were burnt and we finished up and handed over to the night crew around 11pm that night.

Fantastic effort by the crews out there as there was no loss of structures and no injuries to anyone. So our fire season has begun……….

Only another 8 months to go and with the driest last summer and winter weve had for many years, high fuel loadings, and above average temps and below average rainfall forecast its going to be a long one!