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Good and bad measures from Kevin Rudd today. Putting money in people's pockets just before Christmas will give almost everyone a lift.

But putting ever more money into first-home and new-home buyer's pockets is crazy. Australia has the costliest housing market in the world. The average median house price is six times average yearly income. Three times income is the figure in balanced markets.

For more than 30 years Australian federal and state governments have pumped up housing markets. Negative gearing - where every man and his dog, and his and wife's cat, not to mention all the kiddies - bought overvalued, overhyped, underbuilt investment properties and offset their rental returns against tax liabilities, marks a massive early skewing of the market.

Sales rocketed under the artificial demand, pushed even higher by criminal overvaluation and overstated figures in sales contracts. Practises that continue today.

First-home buyer's and new-home buyer's allowances further boost prices. Every increase in help is factored straight into prices.

Today, Mr Rudd added a few more thousand dollars to every dwelling in a market already more inflated than big bubbles popping all round the world. In trying to assist young Australian couples into their own homes governments have succeeded only in making a mockery of their ambitions.

There's a massive property crash poised above all our heads. And Mr Rudd just added to the weight of it!

Remember all the government housing that helped nations climb out of the Depression? Along with billions for grandiose infrastructure, our Kev should consider the benefits of a dinkum Housing Ministry.

There'll still be a bird or two and doings at Tyto, but I've been feeling a few 'rants in my pants' for a wee while. Time for a bit of the good old bile file.

Bathurst weekend seems the right time to have a dig at V8s. Nothing much against the racing, I'm thinking more of the utter blindness of the so-called Australian car industry. Less an industry than an industrial cripple, propped up for more than 30 years with billions from state and federal funds.

From the oil scare of the 70s, the reaction at each new cloud on the horizon was to build bigger, faster, heavier cars and utes. Good thinking, Ford and GM! And what's the big export seller now? Bigger and heavier cars to oil-rich Middle Eastern states.

And what are Australians wanting to buy. Well, finally seeing sense, many want small, thrifty cars. You know, the sort that Australia doesn't make.

And won't make, unless Rudd and Co pour hundreds of millions into their pockets. Nor should make. Cheaper by far to let the Australian industry die a proper death. Import the cars.

Pour the money and jobs into industries with a genuine chance of survival. Alternative power generation - in which Australia should lead the world, but threw away the chance - would be a great place to (re)start!     

 Willie Wagtail makes a black and white study against a colourful backdrop.

Two nightjar species sitting out the day in more or less the same spot seems unlikely. The more so because the first was a Spotted Nightjar, rarely ever seen in Tyto.

A Spotted rose effortlessly from the leaf litter and just as effortlessly disappeared down onto it several times yesterday. Today, hoping for more luck in getting a picture or two, I returned. Only to find the same piece of creek forest taken over by the much more common Large-tailed Nightjar. And still no picture!

Misery-making ear infection has meant limited time spent at the wetlands lately. And even less time at the keyboard. But life goes on. Nobody has to be there to hear the trees fall. Nature just gets on with things.

So, a quick run through a low fortnight.

Mistletoebirds busy building their wonderfully soft domed, dangling nests. And everywhere noisy about the tree tops.

Yellow Honeyeater nesting in a paperbark a metre outside the hide. It's almost at eye level but most visitors don't see it. (Nor the two White-lipped Tree Frogs under the bench).

White-browed Robin starting to build nest on a low horizonal branch of guava at the edge of a shaded grove. The platform structure looks unusual. Perhaps the bird will shape it into the usual dangling cup soon. Or perhaps I'm seeing a radical change. Unlikely!

Black-necked Stork juveniles sticking to small weedy island in middle of lagoon shallows (now subject to late evaporation). Tried sneaking up on them the other day when they'd made a rare trip to the northern boundary track. Too sharp for me!

Lovely Fairy Wren female carrying nest lining. Glided off into lantana tangles and never seen again. Not even expert caller could raise a peep from the presumed nest locale. I also tried and got the usual response. Zero!

Mystery sweet-sounding high whistling one morning continues to ring unidentified in my mind's ear (similar to mind's eye - but even less reliable). Pucker your lips and go: 'Durrrrrrr dit dit dit durrrrr'. Now tell me what bird it is. Please!

Plenty of snakes here and there. Best encounters have been Greater Black Whipsnakes playing dead until gently lifted off the ground (with a stick - they are venomous!). And a feisty little Carpet Python, which objected to a friendly tickle of the tail as it crossed a track.

Among the comers and goers, an Emerald Dove, popping up in various shaded spots; the Rufous Songlark, the Cotton Pigmy Goose and the Yellow-billed Spoonbill have taken off for parts unknown.

Spring is sprung, the grass is rizz, I know where the snakies is...

Not the original (I'm not sure Winnie the Pooh was first anyway), but true of today, September 1.

Ten snakes in less than two hours along fire trails and quiet forestry tracks. And four of the sightings much more than the usual hello-goodbye blink of the eye.

First up, a 1.2m Red-bellied Black straddling a deep rut in a fire trail. Bulky, as most become once beyond about 1.1m length. My arrival caused an Agile Wallaby close by to hop away. Snake stayed as it was for some minutes even as I closed gap to 7m. Still showing no haste, it dawdled across the trail, into the trees, and settled, marked by reflected sheen, on top of dappled leaf litter.

Onward for 200m and right in front of bike, a 900mm Brown (I think - have given up pretensions of expertise with snake IDs) in middle of trail. Sudden stop by me. No reaction from snake 4m away. Stayed locked in position for several minutes. Snake seems not to mind a bit of chat, minor movement (changing camera lens; inch bike forward). Spends time tasting the air. At last it pulls head back slightly, then noses almost casually toward cover.

Then quick views of another biggish Black, throwing itself under dead grass, a small Brown or perhaps Keelback rising angrily from the track's centre strip of grass, two small Blacks hastily quitting side of track, and a Common Tree Snake doing the same.

Comes the highlight: two sessions of about 10 minutes each with same 800mm Black hunting through swathes of cut grass, close by where for 30 minutes yesterday I tracked a 900mm specimen on the hunt. Again, no success for the snake. But it did flush what appeared to be either tiny rocket frog or stubby cricket from grass. Not surprised the snake made no kill. I turned over many piles of the cut grass and failed to spot any living thing in or under the swathes.

After a prettier green/yellow tree snake on the way back into Tyto, the list rounded out with the biggest Black of the day, judging by the considerable girth, sloping off from under a paperbark near the main lagoon.

Why all the snakes? Not pheromones in the air, breeding excitement and males wrestling yet. The nights, however, have lost some chill, early morning is much warmer and days are turning sultry. So it's all go for reptiles.

Which is great since I really go for snakes. That's in spite of experience showing posts about snakes attract fewer readers than those about birds. Just can't help myself!

Black Butcherbird, rufous morph (Running this post in both blogs because it's the essence of  my Tyto).

Come for a little birding walk with me. We'll gloss over most of the trees and plants and concentrate on living things.

Nearly 8am at Tyto carpark, warm (say 20C), greyish light, low cloud, mild breeze. Promise of later sunshine.

Brown Honeyeaters, Yellow Honeyeaters, House Sparrows, Bar-shouldered Doves, Spotted Turtle-Doves and Indian Mynas in the carpark plantings and backing eucalypts.

On the bike (you walk, I ride), toward the first lagoon. Darter, wings outstretched, takes warmth from the feeble sunlight. Agile Wallabies crop grass. One female with near hairless joey pokes its brick-red head from the pouch. Withdraws shyly. Fairy Martins hawks for insects and dips to the water.

Turn right toward north boundary (suburbia) and routine daily survey in Birds Austalia's preferred format: 2-hectare, 20-minute count. Dry creek lined by small trees to left, open ground right with 20+ Bush Stone-Curlews - beyond survey limit - standing around. Whistling Kite opens count, then Fairy Martins (5), Masked Lapwings (2), Peaceful Doves (2), Crimson Finches (8), Red-browed Finches (6), Willie Wagtails (2), a Straw-necked Ibis, White-browed Robins (3) and a Black Butcherbird.

But it's not black. The bird's an immature rufous morph, race rufescens. Cracticus quoyi adults are black but one nest may offer rufous, and black. More to point, the species isn't numerous in Tyto and photographic desire takes over. Twist and turn, duck and dodge, miss chances, lose bird, refind, lose again, get distracted by juvenile White-browed Robin. Finally emerge almost 45 minutes later with so-so pictures of Butcher, robins and Little-Shrike-Thrush (another distraction).

Onward to main lagoon lookout. Forest Kingfishers, Green Pigmy Geese, Australasian Grebes, Comb-crested Jacanas, Wandering Whistling-Ducks, Pacific Black Ducks, Little Pied Cormorants, Great Egret, Intermediate Egret, Black-necked Stork (juvenile triplets), Royal Spoonbills, Yellow-billed Spoonbill, Black Kite overhead, and Welcome Swallows and White-bellied Woodswallows.

To the hide. Find professional guide, photographer, cinematographer and Tyto instigator and visionary John Young seeking responses from resident Little Bitterns (2 heard), Spotless Crakes and White-browed Crakes. No sightings or sounds for me (apart from on John's hi-tech toys). Chat away (birds, snakes, butterflies, more birds). Spot Australian Reed Warblers, White-throated Gerygone and one Little Kingfisher. Plus lovely green/black male Cairns Birdwing (butterfly), and a White-lipped Treefrog on the bulrushes. At a distance, a pair of White-necked Herons and four White Ibises.

Quick look at Brown-backed Honeyeaters completing a nest near the hide and at a noisy Yellow Oriole and John gone. I follow some Olive-backed Orioles along the southern creek track. Hello to Bumpy Rocketfrogs in their stump and out southwest on a wide fire trail (access for firefighters). No sign of the Southern Boobook (first for me: 225 on my Tyto list, of 235 total) harassed by a Spangled Drongo two days ago. But Mistletoe Birds, Sunbirds, MacLeay's Honeyeaters, a lone Fairy Gerygone and the Drongo show up.

Back on to inner lagoon circuit, look for migrant Latham's Snipe. None. Across western end and White-gaped Honeyeaters dash to and from small island. Chestnut-breasted Mannikins in the bulrushes, Nutmeg Mannikins in bushes and a plaintive Horsfield's Cuckoo atop a nearby tree. No Collared Sparrowhawk in the usual hiding spot down the planted levee but two Sacred Kingfishers dart away. White-winged Triller works water's edge shrubs for insects.

Return to base of lookout and take southern track back toward Brown-backed Honeyeaters' nest. Surprise Common Tree Snake lying in feeble sunshine on long cut grass. Quickly vanishes. Surprise Buff-banded Rail almost below BBs' nest (didn't tell you I'd glimpsed rail first time around!). No Azure Kingfisher in last big pool on creek. Get four Metallic Starlings, new seasonal arrivals from Papua New Guinea, as compensation.

Movement in gauvas leads to Graceful Honeyeater taking material from part-built nest (possibly BBH). Lose Graceful and turn to find a big Common Tree Snake moving around a tree trunk. Tiptoe up and get poor picture as snake changes mind about ascending tree and drops into long grass.

Walk (bike gets parked here and there) on and see dark head. Male Leaden Flycatcher. Another dark head. Northern Fantail, which sits on felled tree in sunshine. I sit on same trunk. Fantail won't turn to suit camera. Nor will a Silvereye, which pops up from the grass and devours a small insect. After much singing a male Rufous Whistler appears, followed by a Varied Triller, a White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike and a Helmeted Friarbird. (Talk about no buses and then three at once!).

A Ulysses butterfly beams its electric blue brilliance along the creek, and a Wanderer (Monarch) flitters by before I quit my log and head back to the carpark. Always room for more on the list and a Blue-winged Kookaburra makes an excellent final sighting.

What have we forgotten? Probable chunky Red-bellied Black snake diving from sight, Rainbow Lorikeets streaking overhead, Rainbow Bee-eaters 'pirriperring' in the distance, Tawny Grassbirds sticking to cover, Golden-headed Cisticolas likewise.

That's it. Four hours, a great fun chase to be continued another day, 65 birds seen, plus snakes, butterflies and wallabies and three pictures more or less keepable.

Hope you enjoyed the walk.

Darter lives up to its name, running through a small fish with its upper mandible at Tyto today. Bird's touch proved more precise than mine.

Blame the Great Egret I was trying to photograph in morning sunlight. Camera set for static brilliant white object. Glanced toward movement in water and saw Darter swimming away fast with fish held high and flailing about. Quick shot, hasty limp after bird and fish.

Darter hauled up on small tree island. Brief game of ring-a-rosy and it settled to detaching fish and downing one-gulp breakfast. No time to change most camera settings. So two poor pictures.

And I don't even know the fish species, just that it's not the silvery yellow-tailed ones the Brahminy Kites until recently feasted upon. Fish done gone, kites too.

But I did see 71 bird species today, a high unlikely to be bettered this month. Best sightings: Great Bowerbird, Spotless Crakes, Buff-banded Rail, Bush Stone-Curlews (16 aloft), Mistletoebirds (six shrill squabblers), Rufous Fantail (yep, with Grey Whistler), Black-faced Woodswallows (sometime visitors), Little Kingfisher, Lemon-bellied Flycatcher. Going: Forest Kingfishers, Drongos, Black-faced and White-bellied Cuckoo-shrikes, Yellow and Olive-backed Orioles. Gone: Cotton Pigmy Goose, Plumed Whistling Ducks.

 Magpie-larks seldom offer this sort of pose, being happiest messing about on the ground, preferably near some mud. Which, being mud-nest builders, makes sense. This male bird was photographed from inside the rusty 'hide', my L300 4WD, rough-idling near a pond edge near Ingham. Big out of focus branch cloned away from behind bird's head.

As predicted, the Latham's Snipe in Tyto yesterday today flew off from almost the same spot. Habit...we're all creatures of it!

 Bush Stone-curlew pauses cautiously as I crawl across wallaby droppings to get a ground level picture with the cryptic plumaged bird standing against a contrasting background. It's a bit of a game we've been playing off and on for two weeks. And it's taken two weeks to get half a useful shot. Usually the bird crouches down amid the debris left by a scrub-crunching machine and almost vanishes before one's eyes.

There's also a back story. The bird is one of a pair that stuck for months with a juvenile injured in a leg and almost certainly unable to forage effectively. The two parents recently returned alone to their former daytime standing place. Their effort was doomed to fail. But parents are parents and - whatever the species - go to extraordinary lengths for their young. It it also curious that the two birds choose to stand alone and not mingle with 30 and more Stone-curlews in a small stand of paperbarks close to the Ingham town margin of the wetlands.

Also standing alone in Tyto today, the first Latham's Snipe of the new migratory season. The sharp eyes of a Straw-necked Ibis gave the snipe away. My approach caused the ibis to move a few metres along in a flooded ditch. Suddenly, it darted into some long grass. Up came the snipe. After zig-zagging away and circling high over the main lagoon till I'd cleared off the snipe five minutes later headed back where it had come from. Be no surprise to flush it from same spot tomorrow.

Much harder to flush Spotless Crakes out of the bulrushes. One bird ventured out into the open yesterday after a few "squeaky cushion" calls. But there's so little difference between most calls by White-browed Crakes and Spotlesses that only visual ID can be relied upon. No doubting the producer of loud gurgling from the same patch of bulrush: Little Bitterns easing the throat sound like nothing else. But it will be two or three months before the birds begin to rise briefly during the daytime.

Rising more regularly over the lagoon, but seldom too conspicuously, has been a handsome young Swamp Harrier. Not perhaps so young, because it willingly skirmished with a seemingly more mature bird overhead yesterday. First thought was the birds were doing a bit of aerial bonding. Became clear the older bird wasn't welcome. A few talon touches, feints and swoops and the older bird was off west. Seconds later and the local - as always - was gone from view.

Staying in view, but frustratingly, a Whistling Kite sitting 12 metres away unmoving and part-obscured by a dead branch and shadows. For more than 30 minutes I chatted, shouted, waved ... the bird refused to shift position or look at me. Doesn't happen often, but sometimes a bird - invariably at a bad camera angle - will ignore me. There's a lesson there somewhere!

Brush Cuckoo shows the benefit of a few processing tips from the helpful guys at Australasiaforum.net. If you want to see spectacularly good Aussie bird pix, check out their site http://australasiaforum.net/australasia/index.php. Every bit as good as best on Flickr - and it's almost all our great native birds. 

Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoos still noisy and busy all over the open spaces. But the Fan-tailed Cuckoos that only recently turned up are no longer prominent. Disappointing, more so because one bird was splendidly chestnutty, but as predicted. The species seldom hangs about.

Still hanging about and noteworthy: Rufous Songlark, Black-faced Monarch, Grey Whistler, Rufous Fantail, Little Kingfisher, Collared Sparrowhawk, Cotton Pigmy Goose (female). Species count for July: 116.

Mr Big on the water, solo Australian Pelican waddled on to the grass yesterday and stood quietly below the viewing knoll. Given previous reluctance to allow anyone close, the behaviour seemed out of character. Some strange head and neck contortions suggested a possible problem. But all was well today. Well, apart from me trying for super picture and missing out altogether on a spectacular close-range takeoff.