Mount Tomah Botanic Garden (2013)

Little Wattlebird (Anthochaera chrysoptera)

If you’re making your annual trip to the “Plants With Bite” Display and Fair at the Mount Tomah Botanic Garden in the Blue Mountains, you really should take some time to walk through the gardens as well, especially if the weather is good. The place is beautifully maintained and full of interesting plants and wildlife.

These photos are the result of an hour’s walk-and-stalk. Weather: warm and very slightly hazy, with high cloud and bright sunlight.

Happy first birthday, Bertie

Bertie shakes the dew off his ears and face (04 March 2013)

Here’s Bertie, in a photo taken a day before his official birthday. His actual date of birth is unknown, because he was found wandering on the street one day in May last year and handed in to the local vet. My curiosity was my undoing: one of the vet techs called me, I went over to have a look — and shortly thereafter returned home with a very small bunny in a pet carrier.

Singapore 2013: #1 Flying out

A very large bay on the southern coast of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. River mouth coordinates: -3.172054,113.600578

This post is for people who like looking at hazy pictures taken through finely scratched and slightly distorted aeroplane windows at around 30,000 feet.

A day of bedragglement

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)

The rains have finally come, a gift from ex-tropical cyclone Oswald  after several months of drought, searing heat waves — and more recently, weeks of bushfires. Up north in Queensland there are tornadoes and floods. On the New South Wales Central Coast and Sydney, wind and rain. It has been raining non-stop with varying intensity since early yesterday morning or perhaps the night before. All my rainwater tanks (about 9000 litres’ worth) are overflowing.

Yesterday I visited my friends A & U at their home near Gosford and was afforded the opportunity to photograph the local wildlife in the wet. The drive was interesting and the highway crowded with pretty much everyone driving at or just above the speed limit (which is fine in the dry but probably not particularly wise in inclement weather, hmm? There were several wrecks, accompanied by blue-red flashing lights, tow trucks and cop cars on the other side of the road on the trip back). Here are some of the photos from the visit:

There is something in my garden, and it is eating

Roma/Cherry tomato hybrid

This is the last remaining ripe tomato on my plant this morning. Yesterday: approximately 10 ripe and ripening tomatoes. Today: 1.

Road trip with lighthouses (and birds!) #3: Crowdy Head

Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus)

With no good weather news coming in, we decided to make a dash for Sydney. Lunch was cooked, luggage was packed; the car was loaded and moving by 0815. As we moved further south the skies cleared but the winds increased and could be felt buffeting the car.

But I couldn’t resist the idea of visiting another lighthouse (and anyway everyone agreed it was time for lunch), so I took the turnoff to Crowdy Head.

Road trip with lighthouses #2: Coffs Harbour and surrounds

Smoky Cape Lighthouse, Hat Head National Park

10 October 2012

We started off early for Coffs Harbour, with a side trip to South West Rocks and the Smoky Cape Lighthouse.