Bye Bye Birdie

I said farewell to Maximus Magpie on Wednesday. He wasn’t gaining weight but seemed healthy in all other respects, so the decision was made to release him. We took a drive in to West Wyalong in the morning to visit the veterinarian for a final check-up and then headed back to site for the release. It didn’t take much prompting for Maximus to fly out of the box when I opened the lid. He quickly headed for the nearest tree, perched on a branch and shot me a dirty look as he sharpened his beak. At least we know he didn’t become humanized in during the 24 days that I had him! He seemed content to explore his new hide-out and didn’t seem to be in any sort of distress, so I snapped a quick photo and said good-bye.

Maximus in his tree. It’s like Where’s Waldo (or Where’s Wally as the Aussies call it). He’s up and to the left of the dozer in the middle of the photo.

I kind of miss the little guy. But now I have more time to spoil our girls. Not that they need any more love than they already get!

Other than that, the week was quiet. I enjoyed a quiet but productive weekend, complete with a massive sunburn thanks to my early morning car washing efforts.

In other news, snakes are making regular appearances around home and work. In a few weeks I will be taking a course on handling venomous snakes and will be part of the snake capture and relocation brigade at site. Should be fun! This is a little guy I encountered during my drive home last week.

Panorama-jama

A few months back, Phil hauled my photographically uninspired self out to a lovely spot between Parkes and Northparkes Mine that he wanted a picture of. The two of us make a great team. Phil has the ideas and I make them happen. He was adamant that a panoramic photograph was the only way to justify the scene in front of us and I agreed. It has taken a while to get motivated, but I finally went out and purchased a sweet piece of photo stitching software (PTGui) and played around with Photoshop for a while tonight to produce this:

The field looks like something chosen by Bill Gates as the perfect desktop background for Windows XP. Panoramas are fun.

Phil Grows a Mo

Phil is growing a mustache for a good cause this month. He has joined the ranks of thousands of men around the world who are growing facial hair to raise awareness about men’s health issues. Movember Australia’s partners are The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue: the national depression initiative. Donations can be made online to support Phil’s mo at the following link: www.movember.com