Last post was about what happens to ill birds, and I talked about an ailing, youngish magpie. One day he was sitting huddled by the cattle trough, the next day there was a clump of feathers and he was gone.

I found out where he went.

Yesterday I was driving through the top olive paddock. This time of year I try and go through at least once a day, and usually choose a different path. Its easy to see where I've been....the grass is so high now, after intermittent rain and sun, The buggy crushes it down and marks a track, and the grass doesn't recover for a few days. Meaning "Where was that tree I saw?" is a lot easier to solve.

There's three main reasons for the travel. The olive buds are forming. Between now and the end of November they will turn into flowers. I like to see how they are going, count my chickens before they are hatched, and think about what next year's harvest will be like., (November is late, but we always seem to be later than elsewhere. ) The harvest date will be 180 days after the peak flowering, so its good to monitor the progress and note the date. Last year I took a photo every day, and Google is kindly showing me on a daily basis what I was doing at this time last year!

And thirdly, I'm on the lookout for the damned lacebug. If I spot it early rather than late is saves a lot of grief. It should be easy to see, the trees are covered in lush new leaves so any wear and tear should be obvious.

There's lot of pests and diseases that affect olive trees. We have a little Peacock Spot, a fungus that affects the leaves, then gets into the fruit. Not as much as other places, but with all the rain we've had we have a bit more than normal this year. Some of the color warping that you get with Peacock Spot from a moving vehicle triggers my analog Lacebug detector (i.e. me), and so I stopped next to a big tree with a few discoloured leaves and checked it out.

Behind me I heard some sort of squeak, and turned around. I couldn't work our what I was seeing. My kelpie Fry had jumped out of the buggy and had a ...puppy (?) in his mouth. It wasn't a rabbit, but about that size. Very red. Was it a possum? Baby wombat?

"What are you doing Fry?", I shouted, but he moved away from me, tightened his grip, then gave it a death shake. As he did that its tail swished and I saw pointy ears. Of course! It was a fox cub.

When we moved up here, within a couple of weeks, I had two different elderly women boast to me how they fed a family of foxes that lived nearby. One lived on a farm, the other in an urban area. Both times I bit my tongue and said nothing, but I was appalled. And over the years we have had our own traumas with the predation of foxes. They are beautiful, but a feral, toxic pest and have no place here.

Impossibly cute fox cub

Fry put his catch down and I looked at it close up. Beautiful cub, impossibly cute. Quite fat and obviously well fed. I know we've provided a few chickens in the last two weeks. There was a hole, next to another olive tree, that the cub was sheltered in. Fry had smelt or heard it and grabbed it. It might have come out by its own choice to see what we were doing...they are very curious and not very aware of risk when they are that age.

We've had a few of those small holes over the years. I had always assumed they were rabbit holes, and I fill them in when I find them, but this one had a mapgie skull and feathers, sheep and chicken bones scattered around the mouth. So this was either the nesting home, or the day-care location. It seemed far too small to fit an adult fox, so I think its probably just the daytime hiding place for the cubs.

Mostly there are two cubs each year, but Fry didn't seem to think there was anything else in the hole. I shoved a bag into the mouth of the hole. If anything went in or out they would have to unblock it and I would know. But, a day later and the bag is still there. The cub is still there on the ground too. Tomorrow I'll fill in the hole and bury the cub.

Sad as it was, Fry did the right thing.

Impact of foxes (and cats). This is the third Crimson Rosella kill site I have found this week.

And now I have another reason for randomly moving through the olive trees....