Another day in the life

The catalyst for this post occurred close to the end of the day, when I went to our nearest dam about 9:30 to chuck in the prawn shells from our tea.  (They don't compost well and stink up the garbage if left lying around.)  When I do this I always shone the light around to see if there is anything interesting and on this occasion was rewarded by seeing the back half of a tortoise - presumably an Eastern Long-necked turtle -diving out of view.  This is the first time I have seen one on the property although they are quite often seen crossing the roads in the area.

It seemed a bit thin to leave a post at that, so here are some other photographs I have taken over the last couple of days: nothing dramatic, just things I have enjoyed or found interesting.

The first few images are of the colourful flowers around our garden.

Astrolomeria
 Orange lilies
White lilies
Pink Lily 
Red Lily 
Salvia 1
Acanthus 
Kniphofia (Red-hot Poker) 
Penstemon 1 
Penstemon 2 
Salvia 2 
Foxglove 
 Helichrysum bracteatum
The sloping paddock visible from my study has become covered with grass as the drought has broken (and horses kept away) and this is seeding time.  Lots of parrots turn up to eat the seed.  The flock of 10 Crimson Rosellas did not get snapped but this Galah posed nicely.
 This shot was supposed to show a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo with its crest fully erect.  However it appears that crests have a sensitivity to cameras pointing at them and detumesce as soon as they come into focus.
It is not at all clear to me what this one is eating.  It looks a bit like a horse by-product but they are not in that area.  Perhaps it is a dirty tuber it has excavated?
 Striated thornbills enjoyed the birdbath on a warm day.

I have lost track of the amount of strawberries I have picked.  The big day was at least 3kgs and I suspect we have been averaging over 1Kg per day for more than 3 weeks.  The freezer is bulging and our friends are very happy.
 We have also got some red currants and the raspberries are beginning to hit their straps.
The garlic was dug up, and placed on the veranda to dry.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A tour of the West (part 1)

Image
A friend from my time in the UN sent me some photos of her family trip along Route 66.  They did this is a large camperwagon rather than a Chevy Corvette (apparently the kids jacked up about being offered a trip in the trunk).  It seems to have been a very good trip for them and most interesting to see their photos.  It was also educational for me, as I found out the German for rocking chair (schaukelstuhl, since you ask). They did 7200 miles in 30 days - a pretty serious bit of distance. This made me think of the trips we did in 1981 when living in Denver.  Frances initiated that idea by getting a book about the National Parks of the West  and marking interesting places.  I then worked out a route on a Rand-McNally Road Atlas (GPS was unknown then  - as were iPhones, personal computers and the internet).  From memory, taking nearly the whole Summer school holidays we covered about 10,000 miles in 70 days.  Here, approximately,  are our routes: That map comes from Google Maps (G
Read more

Insects from pine trees

Image
This afternoon (13/1/2015) we were looking out of our sunroom and noticed a strange bit of mist.  On getting my binoculars on the case I found it to be a cloud of tens of thousand of insects.  They appeared with naked eye to be flying away, but with binoculars I thought they were circling. Here are some images In the second one it may be possible to see there are two streams coming from the top of each tree. There was a loud buzzing noise but that could just be several thousand wings. Earlier in the day Frances had been to some nearby willows and they were infested with many little black soft bodied insects.  Perhaps they shifted to the pines and were swarming? Help!! Any information welcome. A colleague, from Wamboin, had noticed a similat phenomenon, but involvng eucalypts rather than pines!  Here are the photos he took with his phone. I have consulted some expert friends.   Their responses were: I would have gone for chironomids. I recall years ago driving al
Read more

Satin Bowerbird gets ready for Lanigans Ball.

Image
Having some time to spare today I went to check the bower near "Tom Green's Seat" in the Australian National Botanic Gardens.  The bower was well occupied by what I take to be - based on the green plumage and yellow bill - a 5th or 6th year male Satin Bowerbird.  (With all these images, click on them for a bigger - unfortunately not better focused picture.  The shots were taken hand held on full zoom from about 10m distance into a fairly well shaded location.) He was very much engaged in adding to the construction. Then it seemed that another bird called from the bush above.  This led to a whole lot of activity: the most spectacular (and worst imaged) was a flash of the wings: The bird also did a fair bit of hopping around.  Given that it was still immature I called to mind the greatest traditional Irish song of all time: Diarmuid O'Leary and the Bards performing Lanigan's Ball .  This ditty refers to spending "6 long months at Brooks Academy learning
Read more