The House(s) of Fran_mart

 This is a continuation of my previous post about our trip to Canberra.  I'll include any snaps from the drive back to Mallacoota. Dawn on the 12th had a nice cloud layer rising in front of Black Mountain Tower. As I went to the library about 1000hrs the Chief Minister was unveiling some new plaques on the Canberra walk of honour (or whatever it is called) in Ainslie Avenue.  I didn't hang around but he seemed to be talking pretty well.  I was surprised that there was no coverage of this on the ABC News in the evening nor the Canberra Behind (the Times) on the 13th. Then over to the trash playground in Glebe Park where Small Persons 1 nd 2 hit the craft tables rather than the play items. Having returned the SPs to their parents we headed off to the AIS car park at Bruce  to try to spot a Superb Parrot.  Parked car, got out, looked into nearest gum tree.  Took some photos   The first two are a male.... .. and these a female. My guess is that there were at least 15 of them in the

 Some years ago we got hold of a brochure for a self guided tour of a series of sculptures around ANU.  We seem to have lost the brochure, but I was able to find one on line.  It was 65 pages long: some books are shorter than that!  The key item was a map showing all the works which I downloaded and mailed to my phone. It was surprisingly readable. We focused on the North Western quadrant, with our route captured by eBird tracking our path. It was a tad difficult, due in part to the small size of the image, working out exactly where to go.  The other part of the difficulty was the vintage of the map: new buildings appeared to have appeared, and old buildings vanished.  I suspect the Uni felt that having an expert on black holes as Vice-Chancellor gave the best chance of them getting a grip on the Capital Works budget.  On to the Art. The first work we located was Una, a polished steel sphere with lots of holes punched in it.  When one looks through a hole points of light, and their ref

 This will be a collection of photos taken in various spots.  The narrative may be even less coherent than usual.  On looking through them sunsets are a feature! I nearly always look at flocks of Corellas to see if a Long-billed is mixed in with the Littles.  On 6 April I heard an aberrant call as we walked in Commonwealth Park and on checking 2 birds perched in a nearby tree found I had Bird of the Day. Less exciting in Canberra, but very much so for anyone from overseas (with the possible exception of some, Macaw-infested, places in South America) was a Crimson Rosella perched on the sunviso outside my study. The Shire, also known as the ACT Government, has set up a school holiday facility in Glebe Park where they have a container of junk which is spread out over the lawns.  Kids then get stuck into the stuff to play with as they like.  A brilliant idea which works very well.  (As a side benefit it must give OHAS onanists conniptions!) Sunrise on 7 April.  Not that spectacular but I