Life round here definitely feels chilled at the moment. It’s amazing what a nice, sunny four or five days does to this country, particularly when it’s been about a year since we had any such sustained period of pleasant.
I know I did the same theme a couple of days ago but if I’m to truly encapsulate the day then I have to return to it. Went on a walk up to the woods of Hardcastle Crags today, and the bluebells are making a spectacular display this year. They are a signal species, if the bluebells are healthy, the wood’s healthy, so this is a good sight. I think anyone familiar with the English countryside reacts to bluebells at a pretty primal level.
Three days of photos back home in HB and they’ve all had a floral theme; which is certainly pervasive as a theme, round here at the moment. There is more going on in this picture than you might at first think, however: this was taken into a cloud of insects, several of which are lit up in the sunlight to the top right of the shot.
Time to start finding photographic inspiration back at home, if I’m to keep this blog going. There’ll be more pictures of local flora yet I am sure: having missed out on (what has passed for) spring at home, there’s some catching up to do. I like the seemingly random distribution of focus on this shot.
OK, look, I know that this picture will freak some of you out but like the picture of the cave spider I took last year, there is such beauty in this creature. Though I don’t necessarily want a couple of dozen of these things out on the verandah of my house – which my friend Fiona seems to have at the moment. And note that the smaller one visible above is not a baby – it’s the male of the species. These things spin huge communal webs, the size of which beggars belief. But, thank heavens, they are not poisonous.
Australia is the world’s sixth-largest country, only just smaller than Brazil. But only about 23 million people live here. On the east coast it’s quite urbanised but that means there’s a terribly, terribly large expanse of the interior in which, pretty much, no one lives at all.
On this trip I have not really encountered that emptiness, until today, when I drove from Cairns airport some 330km north to Cooktown, along the Mulligan highway, which was only completed in 2006. For one 118-km stretch, between Mount Carbine and Lakeland, there are no turn-offs, and only one building (the Palmer River Roadhouse, the epitome of ‘the middle of nowhere’). But there are an awful lot of these termite mounds. Termites are definitely the dominant lifeform in this area.
Last day of April, the third full month in a row spent outside the UK, but the last on this current run – by the end of May I will be home. Either way, it’s about time we had some more ducks on this blog. I like ducks, and whatever sub species these individuals are an example of, they arranged themselves rather fetchingly along the Brisbane River bank this afternoon.
This is a female Southern Cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, the second-heaviest and third-tallest species of bird in the world. They have the lowest bird-song of all, a near-subsonic rumble, just at the edge of human hearing. Cassowaries play a vital role in maintaining rainforest in a healthy state, distributing many seeds, and it is unclear whether any other species perform this role for many plants. They have large territories and are thus a good ‘signal’ species: if the cassowaries are in good shape, the ecosystem’s in good shape. Except that there are only 1,500 cassowaries left in the wild in Queensland. Half of them die in car crashes.
Be nice to cassowaries. I find I am quite taken with them as a species: even in a continent full of beautiful birdlife, it stands out. This lovely resides at the Lone Pine zoo, and this shot was the culmination of a 15-minute modeling session in which Ms. Casuarius was cajoled into posing by yr. humble photographer.
I’m trying to resist the temptation to overdo the ‘Flora/Fauna’ theme but don’t seem able to kick the habit. This was taken in the Boondall wetlands, where I wandered, around lunchtime. I needed some headspace so took my laptop and finished off the paper I needed to write while mainly sitting in a birdwatchers’ hide at the mouth of the Nundah creek. Memo to self though – if visiting wetlands, take insect repellent.
Some great insects however, including more butterflies than I think I have ever seen anywhere. Have no idea what this species is specifically, but there were lots of them, and this one is definitely resting on a paperbark tree – called as such for obvious reasons.
Taken in the Tropical House of Brisbane’s other Botanical Gardens, on the slopes of Mount Coot-tha. Seems a little unnecessary to go to the expense of building a Tropical House in a place that is, at worst, sub-tropical, but what do I know. There were two other candidates for today’s photo, one of a giant lizard (but I did that theme on Thursday) and one which could well have just been an excuse to take a pic of a blonde in a short skirt, so let’s go with this more ideologically-sound option.
Being 42 