The gum trees that surround our house and line the roadway are in blossom. This has drawn the nectar feeding birds and fruit bats. By day the air is filled with the screech of rainbow lorikeets feasting on the nectar and by night it is the squabbling chatter of fruit bats or flying-foxes.
Flying-foxes are very controversial at the moment. They are vital pollinators of our native forests and are protected native fauna. But flying foxes live in large colonies near water just like humans so the two often clash. The flying fox is noisy, drops lots of excriment on rooves and in pools and now more alarmingly, has been found to carry a nasty new virus - Hendra virus.
Hendra is named after a suburb in Brisbane where in 1994 a horse trainer, his stable hand and his horses became ill and within days the trainer and 14 horses had died. It was found that flying-foxes carried the new virus which was apparently harmless to them but lethal when transmitted to the horses. Ill horses transmitted the disease to the human carers and vets who came to their aid.
Scientisits have found the virus is passed to the horses when flying-fox excriment drops in horse's feed troughs and water containers. Then when the horse becomes ill, the virus is passed to humans through their close contact with the ill horses.
Very concerning. On a happier note, this is how I chose the colour scheme for our house - walls the red brick colour of the gum branch, roof the green of the leaves and the trims, you guessed it, the cream of the blossoms.
