Author: Tom Kristensen

Maianbarbarianism

Powerful Pellets

Looking up through a skylight I wondered about the large grey sausage adhered to the glass. Some days or perhaps weeks later I went up on the roof and discovered the best part of a small skeleton encased in a tight felt cocoon. On opening the package a pair of mandibles appeared and from the dentition I was able to identify the remains of a brush tail possum. Only one animal will eat a possum and drop the remains in the form of a pellet; the Powerful Owl, Ninox strenua

The pellet is the indigestible portion of a possum meal and it was coughed up from a roost in the Angophora tree that grows over our house. In the following months I found gizzards dropped on the roadway and later the dismembered wings of a fruit bat.

At night in the winter, more often after rain, the Powerful Owl can be heard calling. Locals have different theories about where the owls may nest, roost and hunt. Perhaps they are occasional visitors, perhaps we share a pair with Bundeena.

The powerful owl is listed as a vulnerable species due mainly to habitat clearing. We are fortunate indeed to have them here in Maianbar

To hear a recording of a Powerful Owl calling click on this soundcloud link

The Beginning

This is the first post to the newsfeed. Fresh posts will displace older posts from the top of the page. It is also possible to make the home page static so that the visitor is met with an introduction, but more often this is included in a page titled About because returning visitors would prefer to see something fresh. To keep a post at the top of the page it can be made sticky and it will then cary the Featured title

Scroll down the home page and the posts will appear in sequential order, a quick way for people to catch up on content

To the left hand side are all the widgets and  there are many choose from. I have opted to stack the sidebar with links to static pages – including index of contents and a page introducing myself, and another page for references – Like the posts these pages can have room for comment by visitors, or not. Readers love to leave comments and often the sidebar is used to reward comments by listing latest comments. The engagement of readers is the main way of generating traffic.

All comment can be published immediately, or subject to approval.

The sidebar also include a tag cloud that ranks the tags by size according to the number of entries.

When exploring the site the reader can reset the journey by returning to the top of the home page called up by pressing the title of the sidebar; ecology of MAIANBAR

At the foot of posts are tags and categories, these can be used to draw up all pages on Botany (a category) or more specifically all pages on a particular plant or flower colour (a tag). All content contains  links that may lead to other outside content or to further expansion of text or images, usually such links are underlined, except in the case of an image where a note is given.

Enjoy