The House(s) of Fran_mart

When I started this series I had in mind to make the titles ever-increasingly good.  That got a trifle difficult since unless you are Dr Pangloss (or work for something owned by Mr Jerry Hall) things don't always get better.  So I decided that a parabola model - first half increasing, second half declining - would be more normal. I was taken by this bent tree with the inlet.  I think it is mainly because the murky light which graced the last two days made everything shine in tones of grey. So we did the usual walk for our last morning: basically a lap of Karbeethong rather than the longer walk into town.  This was as always pleasant meeting a few folk (the tourists having nicked off and many of the locals having gone to their jobs) and seeing quite a few usual birds. When we got back to the house a fat person was noticed up in a tree.  In subsequent conversation with Warwick the Painter he opined that this was probably a female as she was silent, rather than emitting the gr

More than what I hear you ask?  A very good question, to which possible answers include: More than on Sunday; or More than there was before I started writing this; Additional birds added to the trip list. Let me not be prescriptive but you choose. One thing there was more of was cloud.  No sunrise was visible, and it was pretty gloomy all day. As usual we started with a walk with the small dog.  We headed in to town and got a good collection of birds.  Frances scored Bird of the Day (although I did also see one) with Azure Kingfisher: I'd had a few dodgy sightings of a small bird travelling under vegetation at Warp factor 7, but this was a counter.   Once into town a few denizens of the caravan park seemed to be packing up. Perhaps as a result there had been less folk around on the path. Back at the house we met the painter who had dropped in to make arrangements for him re-starting work on Tuesday.  With that sorted I went for a prowl up the street to photo

I'll leave it to the readership to decide how that newly minted adjective fits on a scale from "rather pleasant" to "Super".  The word arrived as I have been munching on an Easter Egg I won in a raffle a few days ago (thanks Queanbeyan View Club!)! Apart from The Egg the day also pretty good in the bird area.  We started by scoring 35 species on our morning walk around Western Karbeethong.  This included Bird of the Day which was a Cattle Egret grazing with some cattle in the pastures at the end of the settlement, When I commented in the past about the difficulty of getting my camera to focus on that which I wished, rather than the background (or occasionally a small twig in the foreground)a helpful colleague asked about "manual focus".  Today I tried it out with a crepuscular Wonga Pigeon.  It is a bit tricky as the finger has to move from the manual focus button to the shutter button without losing the composition, but I think this is OK.  Certai

We are finding that the passage of the seasons means we are often up well before daybreak.  So are some of the fisherfolk as exemplified by this one heading out towards the bar,  (For the benefit of non-Australians, that is a term given to sandbanks that build up across the mouths of estuaries.  I can't imagine that a fisherperson would be heading to the pub at 0615: they'd know it doesn't open until 1000.) Eventually the sun arose. A large butterfly caught our attention as we set off on our dog walk.  It looked a trifle odd, but on checking this photo against my field guide it was an Orchard Butterfly: the oddness was due to the hind-wings being tucked away, In the lagoon a Little Egret (note black bill and legs) ... ... was feeding with a couple each of White-faced Herons and Royal Spoonbills. Having got the exercise walk out of the way later in the day we went for a stroll to Quarry Beach.  Unlike the exercise walk this was devoid of birds (but well endowe

I am using the adjective in the sense of an enjoyable day rather than the etymology suggested by Wikipedia .  The only potential blot was being unable to acquire any Hot Cross Buns at the bakery as they only do them to order.  So I ordered some for tomorrow knowing that Graham Chapman won't mind me being a day late. The weather was overcast all day, but gave it a bit of a go at dawn.  This is a shot of the nicely painted front of the house without any scaffolding in the way.   We went for our usual walk into town this morning and then to the heath-land around Davis Creek.  The most interesting flowers were this Billardiera  (with bonus ant)   ...  .. and a good collection of Banksia marginata . As we walked along the beach we were impressed with the range of colours available.  I think this is a fruiting body (not sure if that is a correct term for algae)cof kelp. A kelp attachment iorgan well covered with sponges that have adopted a red tone. This sponge lo