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.

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 #1: Port Macquarie and surrounds

Tacking Point Lighthouse, Port Macquarie

A planned road trip to the Gold Coast (Queensland) with family (689km, 7 days) was truncated for reasons of distance/time and became a New South Wales-only holiday terminating at Coffs Harbour (536km, 5 days) before the return trip to Sydney. The revised plan involved driving to Port Macquarie using the fastest possible route, staying for two nights and then moving north to Coffs Harbour to stay an additional two nights, with an option to extend through Sunday if necessary. The return journey would be a slower one via coastal roads rather than solely using the Pacific Highway.

Here are some photos from Port Macquarie and its surrounds.

Spider day: Eriophora transmarina

Eriophora transmarina

I found a large web in the backyard one wet February morning, stretched between a rose bush and a hazelnut shrub. In the middle of it sat a smallish  Australian Garden Orb Weaver Spider (Eriophora transmarina): about 2.5 cm from the top of its head to its spinnerets.

Laughing Kookaburra

Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)

These photos were taken at the Mount Elliot Lookout at Katandra Reserve, on the New South Wales Central Coast.

The Laughing Kookaburras (Dacelo novaeguineae) at this location will allow humans to approach to within 3 metres.

(click on the photos for a larger image)

Magpies

Australian magpie (Cracticus tibicen)

A visit with friends at their home in a sclerophyll forest on the Central Coast last Sunday afforded me a chance to photograph an Australian magpie (Cracticus tibicen) and its young.

Myxomatosis

Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) with myxomatosis

This is the face of myxomatosis.

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Bobbin Head, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is part of the Hawkesbury River system and in fact is where the Hawkesbury meets the sea. These photos are from a short day trip I made to this location.