Category: Australia

A New Day, A New Year.

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Hello and a belated Happy New Year – the start of the new decade.  The image I am sharing  today is of a Cornflower in the garden at sunrise yesterday.  The flowers are very late in flowering due to my tardiness in sowing the seeds and the odd growing season that we have had starting with a cold spring and now the blistering heat.  Whilst both the heat and wind have been horrid here, my thoughts go to those far less fortunate in Australia at the start of this dreadful fire season and to the crews, volunteers and others who are working tirelessly in the communities.  Stay safe and well 🙂

 

Stormy view

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Hello again 🙂  Last week we made a return visit to stay at Johanna Beach which is near Cape Otway, part of The Great Ocean Road trail. Being the middle of winter the weather was very stormy with some very rough seas, which being from Swansea in the UK, I love. The sense of being a small part of a wild landscape is very thrilling 😀

Seaside Garland.

Hello to everyone!  As I have often remarked on this blog, I am constantly amazed by the patterns in nature.  I found this garland of different seaweeds on the foreshore which appears to have been shaped by the tide – there were no signs of disturbance in the sand, and I was so happy with my discovery 😀 😀 I love the beauty of the different shapes, textures and contrasting colours.

A moment of beauty…

Hello everyone.  It has been very cold here, winter has arrived.  The image I am sharing on another sad and unthinkable day for London and the UK,  is one I took a few weeks ago.  I saw this dragonfly at sunrise which was still in it’s cold slumber from the night before and was fascinated by the glass like beads of dew on the wings and the magnification in the drops on it’s eye.  Enjoy.

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A Last Dance of Summer.

Hello everyone!  This is an image of a ‘windflower’ or Japanese anenome – the bloom is tired, the light is soft and so it gave a feeling of the last dance of an evening.  Autumn is here which for me means that it’s harvest time at work…we start picking this coming Monday and so for the next 10 days or so I will see tonnes and tonnes (literally) of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes.  An exciting but exhausting time so probably my last post for a few weeks.  See you the other side!  😀

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Stained glass…

I’ve been enjoying catching up and seeing everyone’s posts though I don’t have as much time to comment as often as I would like at the moment 🙂

This small dragonfly is one of the treasure trove of summer insects I found in the fog at sunrise the other week.  The delicate wings reminded me of stained glass by the way it was backlit in the swirling fog.

mayfly

Jewels at dawn.

It’s been a hot start to February here whilst some of you are freezing before the seasons start to turn!  One morning this week saw very heavy fog as the overnight temperature got really quite cool (6C) before another hot day.  At sunrise I was delighted to find many insects waiting for the warmth of the sun to get dry and moving – this tiny butterfly (wingspan of 2 cm) is called a common grass blue.  I hope you enjoy, click in for a larger image. 🙂

butterfly-dew

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas….

Even after 13 years of Christmas in the southern hemisphere, I still miss the cold and dark of a British Christmas.  Today we went to Musk, near Daylesford for what has become our annual tradition to buy our Christmas tree from the same Christmas tree farm.  In total opposite to the UK, the day was sunny, with blue skies and I was in a t-shirt…just the thing for an image in near infrared 🙂

xmas tree 1a
Taken on converted Nikon D90 in near IR. Click for better view

 

A Crown of Gold…

I live near  Mount Macedon where there are a lot of houses with beautiful gardens (most are more like parks, being acres in size) that were planted in the late 19th Century, landscaped with beautiful northern hemisphere trees and plants.  They are often open to the public in spring and autumn.  Last month I visited one and saw this huge and wonderful old Beech tree, its crown in full autumn glory 🙂

golden crown
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