Goolwa Birds

In November, we took a couple of days off, and headed 50 miles down the Coast to stay in Goolwa.  Goolwa is a Port on the River Murray very close to the end of the system, and not so very long ago, it was thought that the entire ecology of the area was irreparably damaged.  We have a terrible drought that lasted for many years, and most of the water was kept upstream for various reasons, none of which really went down too well with South Australians.

Anyway, Mother Nature came to the rescue with 2 years of flooding rains.  These floods caused a terrible amount of damage up in the higher reaches of the Murray/Darling catchment area, but as always there is a silver lining.  And the silver lining for the Murray was that a massive amount of water came down and flushed the River out - quite literally.  Miraculously, the bird life has come back, the water quality has improved, and the Lakes (which were just about dry) are full of water again.

Here is a series of bird photos I took on the first day we were away.  My camera was a Canon 60D, and the lens a 70-300 zoom.

Cape Barren Geese in flight.  I love to see images of birds in flight, but very rarely can I capture one for myself .  

I love the symmetry of this image - 2 up and 2 down.  Pelicans would have to be one of the photogenic birds of all time.  They are big - which helps, and they don't move awful fast.

This is a Red Kneed Dotterel.  I love the name of this little bird.  This one was well intent on catching dinner, and it was interesting to see him jab down into the sand with that beak, and come up with a worm.

A black swan family.  The grey coloured ones are the youngsters.

A little White Egret surrounded by very many little cormorants.  they were all preening, but all the egret wanted was his dinner.

Another pelican - I couldn't resist.

Cape Barren Geese

Another mob of Little Cormorants.  There were hundreds of them down there.

Tickletank

Last week on one of our regular Open Garden expeditions we went to a garden in Mt. Barker which was really quite extraordinary.  It's owned by an artist and is a converted water tank! Yep, a water tank, which once serviced the then very small town of Mt Barker.  It was installed in 1944 - 50,000 gallons which is really quite huge.  This artist bought the property in 1998, and converted it into the most eclectic home you could imagine.
Here are a few images I took on that day.  This property made an enormous impression on me.  It was charming, and the atmosphere was so serene.  The artist has done all the work on the garden herself, and she has saved up all manner of broken pieces of crockery and furnished the garden with some extraordinary mosaics.Some mosaics are actually on the wall of the main tank.  The whole effect is quite wacky but in a good way.

 THE TANK WALL

A SHELF DISPLAY INSIDE THE HOUSE

TEAPOT WATERFALL # 1

TEAPOT WATERFALL # 2

When you enter the garden, it's through an archway completely smothered in a Banksia rose - except for one small Cecile Brunner rose, climbing through it.

MOSAIC CHAIR SEAT

2 DANCING MAIDENS

A VIEW OF THE GARDEN THROUGH SOME WROUGHT IRON WORK, WITH A MOSAIC PART OF THE TANK WALL IN THE BACKGROUND.

MOSAIC TABLE TOP

Belair Park

Today we went for a walk around the lake at the Belair National Park.  An enormous amount of "stuff" as usual, and far too many photos to choose from.  I got this really cute image of a turtle which I liked a lot.

The funny thing is that although I've visited that lake numerous times, I've never noticed turtles before - and today we saw more than a dozen.

And here is the second portrait of a raven.  Black birds are not the easiest to photograph, and these ravens were in a terrible state about something.  There were quite as few people, including some rather noisy and disruptive children - so maybe the birds thought their nest was under attack or something.

Wayne saw a koala, which is his choice for a blip today - I mean what else could you choose!  It's such a treat to see this cuddly little creature in the wild, and even though they are quite common they are still very nice to see.

And finally here's a nice image of an Australian Wood Duck, complete with reflection.

Great weather for photographs.

The weather is warming up, although the nights are still very cool.  With warmer days, there's plenty more critters around, and the flowers are amazing.  Because of the long wet, cool winter the garden is ablaze with colour, and the flowers are lasting longer because of the cool nights.  Today I got some images of an Australian Admiral Butterfly, and I've never seen one of these in the garden before.  It was feeding on the Diosma, which is so covered in flowers you can hardly see the leaves.  Only one allowed on Blip of course, so here are the best of the rest.

Yesterday I took some images of a paper wasp - risked life and limb I may add, but escaped without being stung.  I posted the best on Blip, and the only reason I am posting another one here is because the wings look great in this one.  You can also see why fashion refers to a wasp waist.  Anyway I destroyed the nest, which was only 3 cells at this point, and I've been checking throughout today, and the wasps haven't come back.

And finally, another one from the front garden - just to sweeten things up a little.

Belair National Park

I was up at the Park again yesterday, photo opportunities like you wouldn't believe.  Even a slightly grumpy koala bear.  But the bird images were the best.  Here's is the Blip I chose. We only get 2 of the 8 varieties of Rosella in SA, and this is one of them, and I think the most elegant.  I didn't bother to do too much in the way of flowers, because you really have to hike down the trails to get to the best ones.  Anyway here are a few images that didn't get Blipped, starting off with the koala, followed by a terrific raven shot, and a coot, and another Noisy Miner.  I chose the coot because his feet fascinate me.  And the raven, he's saying, Don't you point that thing at me!!

This is for Wayne

I think Wayne was a bit disappointed today when he realised that the wouldn't be home in time to see the tulips.  The yellow ones (home of the flower spider) are just about finished now.  Talking about the flower spider, I got quite a good image of him a couple of days ago, which didn't make the cut for Blip, and boy has he put on weight.  I reckon he's three times the size he was when I first blipped him.  I actually saw him stalk and catch a fly the other day.  The fly was easily twice his size but he didn't hesitate.  It was all over in a nano-second  I got a couple of images but they're not good enough to be shown here or anywhere else. This one I took yesterday isn't too bad though.

The front garden is really a show stopper right now.  I see people stop and look at it all the time.  It's a riot of colour as you will see.

And finally, here's a tulip image - it's the edge of a white fringed tulip.  The tulip looks like it was shot in black and white, but it's not.  It's a colour shot, that happens to be black and white.  You wouldn't know what it was unless I told you. Oh, and a cherry blossom - this is taken closeup with the wide angle lens.

Magpies and Flowers

As always more images than I can Blip - the best blip is here.  The one I most wanted to post was the innards of a tulip, but I just couldn't get it right somehow. Perhaps it was depth of field, or maybe the colours were just too dark and light.  I might have another go tomorrow, but make it more arty than just as is. We'll see.  It was lovely to see the sun today, but there's still heavy dark clouds around.