This is one is for the ‘please explain’ basket.
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Kyabram’s Des Tang was enjoying a quiet beer on his porch last Sunday week, when he was confronted with a perplexing sight in the western sky.
The first thing he noticed was a colourful blob just off the horizon with the same colours as a rainbow.
A small, squarish, blurred mass, not a semi-circular horizon-to-horizon display like a rainbow.
Des went for his camera.
He took a photo and when checking his shot noticed a circular blue-green object near the coloured mass that he hadn’t seen before.
By the time he took a photo of it it had moved a considerable distance in the sky, vertically.
“There was a wind but it didn’t move it all,” he said.
“It just went straight up from when I first saw it.”
Des said the two phenomena were viewable for at least half an hour.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said.
Anyone got any ideas?
Honour for Bluey
Rochester could now officially boast having the longest-living dog of all time.
The honour was temporally held by a Portuguese dog call Bobi, who died in October last year at the alleged age of 30 years and 266 days.
But Bobi has been stripped of the title after an investigation by Guinness World Records officials.
The Guinness review found it ‘‘no longer had the evidence it needed to support Bobi’s claim as the record holder’’.
There were doubts about the claim initially, with sceptics pointing out photos of Bobi’s feet appeared to be different in colour as a puppy and then in his dotage.
Bobi was a purebred Rafeiro, a livestock Portuguese livestock guard dog, who wrested the honour of being the world’s oldest dog from the Rochester-owned cattle dog bitch called Bluey.
Acknowledged as the world’s oldest dog when she died in 1939 aged 29 years and five months, Bluey was owned by Rochesterites Les and Rosalie Hall and there is a mural in town honouring her life as the one-time world record holder.
Every little bit helps
More unpredicted heavy rain on Wednesday of last week dumped a lot in a short period.
The storm rolled into Kyabram at midnight, with the Kyabram weather station registering 11cm, but a lot more was recorded in some places across the district.
Kyabram has received 17mm for February.
Storms lingered in the Rushworth, Stanhope and Tatura areas until noon on Wednesday.
Pesky pests
Purple Swamphens — some call them bald coots — are in plague proportions in the Moulamein area at the moment.
Our man at Moulamein, China Gibson, said so many of them had taken a liking to rice crops that some growers were ready to walk away. It’s that serious.
China has colourful words to describe the invaders, which he estimates are in their thousands.
‘‘They have probably destroyed 10 to 15 per cent of my crop. They just keep coming like the Terminator,“ China said.
“They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be bargained with. They cannot be scared away. There is just no stopping them. They just keep coming until your 12-tonne crop is bare water.
“We don’t where they come from or where they go to after they destroy our crops, but everyone is definitely over them up here.’’
Purple Swamphens are protected but are allowed to be destroyed on rice crops.
Young at heart
Seymour resident Diane Wales, who was born in 1956, will turn 17 this year.
Home come?
Well, Diane was born on February 29 — a leap year — and is one of only about five million people worldwide to share the milestone.
And for those confused about how a leap year comes about, it’s all about the world losing time.
The leap year is three years in the making to lose a full day, so in the fourth year, a day has to be added.
Shaky bridge
Kirwans Bridge near Nagambie is not the only historic wooden bridge in the area with a clouded future.
Speculation is growing about the fate of Seymour’s heritage bridge, known as Seymour’s Wooden Wonder.
The bridge was part of the Hume Hwy until the road was diverted to a new bridge in 1967. It was closed to pedestrians in 1988 due to vandalism.
Residents and volunteers are now calling for its restoration, but fear if it isn’t included in the first year of each local council budget there isn’t much chance of restoration work happening any time soon.
Grants hit the sweet spot
A grant close to $50,000 is sweet news to many shooters in the region.
The NSW Government is providing Echuca-Moama Field and Game with the grant that will be used to replace 11 automatic target throwers (traps) and greatly improve safety.
Club president Ricky Keirl pointed out that because the club’s facilities were in Moama, it was hard to get Victorian grants, and there was also a NSW reluctance to support a facility that serviced twin towns.
New place to visit
Violet Town has a new tourist attraction — and an Australian first.
It recently unveiled the largest mural in Australia dedicated solely to women who had served in war.
The mural features local women, past and present, and was created by the Benalla father-and-son team of Tim and Sam Bowtell, with legendary nurse Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkle, the sole survivor of the 1942 Banka Island massacre.
The Bowtells also produced the Violet Town Southern Aurora train disaster mural, which is nearby.
Anthrax found in region
Anthrax has been detected at a second property in Greater Shepparton, near where the first outbreak was revealed.
One cow died, with the remaining cattle being vaccinated.
Now, 10 beef cattle have died on the two properties.
Casting a line at Deni
The Deniliquin Edward Kolety Fishing Challenge weekend two weeks ago drew a capacity field of anglers, many of whom weren’t disappointed with their luck.
More than 200 Murray cod were caught during the weekend, seven of them being among the tagged cod released earlier in the month, but fewer than 20 yellowbelly.
The largest cod measured 77cm and the longest yellowbelly 49.5cm.
And on fish and Deniliquin, the fourth of four threatened species have just been released into the town’s McFaull Park lagoon.
Some 1000 olive perchlets have been put into the lagoon to join other threatened species in purple spotted gudgeon, southern pigmy perch and catfish.
Did you know?
- There are 701 types of pure-breed dogs. There are about 90 million dogs in the US.
- Some bird species use only their lower eyelid to blink, whereas pigeons use their upper and lower lids.
- Fish and insects do not have eyelids — their eyes are protected by a hardened lens.
- Flatfish (halibut, flounder, turbot and sole) hatch like any other ‘normal’ fish. As they grow, they turn sideways, and one eye moves around so they have two eyes on the side that faces up.
Square dinkum
G’day
‘‘Last night my wife and I watched two movies back to back ... fortunately for me, I was the one facing the TV.’’
Hooroo!
Sports reporter