Thursday 14th March 2013, 12.20pm (day 567)
Lunchtime in the Botanical Gardens, Brisbane, and this lady snaps a close-up of two squabbling water dragons while a third tries to sneak round the back without being noticed.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Flora/Fauna
Mushroom seat
Monday 11th March 2013, 1.50pm (day 564)
Difficult choice of picture today because I am currently in the highly picturesque Blue Mountains town of Katoomba, which is surrounded by spectacular sandstone mountains, pillars and gorges. But I’m off walking round here tomorrow as well, and I don’t want to repeat myself – also the light wasn’t so good today. So hopefully you should see pictures of the landscape tomorrow. And if not, well, there’s plenty already online I’m sure.
So here’s today’s photo instead. I think this is a very cute little mushroom and the fly sitting on the top has something of Lewis Carroll’s caterpillar… don’t you think? Just a little bit?
Georg and the weka
Tuesday 26th February 2013, 6.35pm (day 551)
First day on the Heaphy Track. To save all three of them being just landscapes here is some human – and animal – interest. The bird is a weka, a flightless relative of the kiwi, unique to New Zealand and – this particular one anyway – seemingly well practiced in the art of thievery. This was taken at the shelter/campsite of Gouland Downs, a very atmospheric spot; comedy value was high as Georg, camping out, kept having the weka sneak up behind him, only to scurry away as he turned around. Here the nemeses come face to face with each other.
Grasses, Sawdust Bay, Stewart Island
Friday 22nd February 2013, 12.25pm (day 547)
Nice photos as they are I feel that both of the last two days’, being taken in the evening, haven’t captured the brilliant light of this place – particularly as it is having unusually bright, warm and settled weather at the moment (apparently their whole summer has been good). This was taken on the second day of my walk round the Rakiura Track, a 25-mile yomp through, well, rather a lot of forest actually, but this moment the light did open up.
Tree nursery, Torquay beach
Saturday 16th February 2013, 9.25am (day 541)
Having never actually been to Torquay, UK, I was today taken to its namesake south of Geelong, where a spectacular beach – just one of many such beaches in this country – fringes the Bass Strait. I like the way the light catches this forest of blue plastic triangles beside the walkway to the sands, part of a dune regeneration project.
Heron, in Geelong
Friday 15th February 2013, 4.05pm (day 540)
Although I flew into Melbourne yesterday I’m not actually staying there this weekend, instead, I’m hanging out in Geelong which is a smaller city a bit further round the bay. I’m staying with an old university friend I haven’t seen in about ten years since she emigrated out here for work. There’s not an awful lot to Geelong but, like the rest of this country, it does have some cool wildlife. I was stalking this heron for a good 20 minutes from along the path by the bay near the marina, and got a few good shots, but this one I chose because the reeds just beneath the water give it a sort of texture, and the S-shape of its neck is just beautiful. It’s the second heron to appear on the blog and the first one was beautiful too.
Eucalyptus
Thursday 7th February 2013, 11.30am (day 532)
Every place has sea, and rocks, and sky, and even if these may be more of themselves in Australia, they are still basically familiar. What I like is the unfamiliarity of the flora and fauna, its basic difference – like the ubiquity of these eucalyptus trees, and their amazing skeins of bark and the leaves that when you rub them between your fingers smell like Vicks’ Vapo-Rub. This tree grows in the garden of the Penneshaw YHA, where I spent all the day working, and all I had to do to get this shot was just point the camera upwards.
Emu, at the Emu Ridge distillery
Wednesday 6th February 2013, 9.20am (day 531)
Toured Kangaroo Island today and saw plenty of interesting creatures both in the wild and in sanctuaries of one kind or another, including kangaroos, koalas, goannas, seals, wombats and more. Good landscapes too, but as I did a landscape yesterday, the wildlife theme is more appealing – and this emu wins because I love its deep red eye sitting in its otherwise bland plumage like a jewel. Vicious-looking thing however – was glad it was behind a fence.
Pigeons at the South Australia Museum, Adelaide
Saturday 2nd February 2013, 3.45pm (day 527)
Translocated myself (via Qantas) to Adelaide this morning. My original plans were to spend this week checking out the Queensland coast but Cyclone Oswald put paid to that, so here I am in South Australia instead. It feels very different – not sub-tropical like Brisbane is, but more Mediterranean, much less humid, and with these big wide boulevards and low-key, but attractive, architecture. But then again it was a 3-hour flight, and a 3-hour flight from Manchester gets me to (say) Corfu, so I suppose it’s no surprise that the environment has altered somewhat.
More evidence of this – we are back with pigeons (as opposed to ibises) as the bird-pest of choice. This huge flock of them were wheeling on and off the cornices of the South Australia Museum this afternoon, as I came out, having done the tourist bit.
Being 42 