February Updates

As usual: changes and additions after initial posting.

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Insects from pine trees

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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 rec...
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More in the vicinity of 505

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 This is pretty much our morning on 8 August.  It begins looking out the windows towards the CBD, with some light clouds well below the tops of the high rises.  My guess would be the 60th floor. On our walk we saw some signs of Spring! And a very nice display of orchids in a front yard near South Yarra Primary. On the other side of the Park the Tonka trucks were still at play.  There is much scope for further photos as they knock down this building.  (I don't know how the punters work in the white building while this is going on,) I have activated Google Lens on my phone, and it identified Clivia miniata for me! We have watched the demolition as it has proceeded.  By 11 September (a month later) the high stuff has all gone and only cleaning up the ground is needed.  (Frances took this image from St Kilda Rd - the opposite end of the site to my earlier photos.)
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Beverages of the Adelaide Trip

As readers of the various posts about our trip to Adelaide will have realised we did a fair bit of shopping for bottled goods along the way.  This is a report on the quality of those purchase decisions (and to some extent on the purchase process - I refuse to use the term "experience"). Beer It came as a surprise to realise that all my beer stops were in the Clare Valley.  Possibly I was running out of room in the car by the time we got to Adelaide? Knappstein, Reserve Lager : this is produced close to the Knappstein Winery, well known as a source of good product.  As far as I could determine they only make this one style of beer, so the purchase was rather 'retail' with no tasting involved.  I am normally resistant to lager as it tends to be McBeer but this was definitely not that.  Very refreshing with a fruitiness in tatste and quite moreish: which could be dangerous at 5.6% ABV.  Will be looked into as an on-line purchase in the future.   Cla...
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