This was a week around my garden except for one photo. Having a rainy time, when the sun was almost out or I heard a bird call, I grabbed my camera and strolled around the garden. Enjoy my selection of some of the #Feathered Friends I found in a week in my garden.
This is not the Kookaburra that wrecked my screen doors
Being ignored by a Grey Fantail
A Black-shouldered Kite that hangs around a Bunnings Hardware in South Grafton near some paddocks where I am sure it gets quite a good feed of rodents and lizards
Hard to see but this Satin Bowerbird is eating the plant in the grass. Don’t you love his pants?
A Lewins Honeyeater getting a snack from a Fire-sprite Grevillea
You have seen lots of male Eastern Yellow Robins in previous posts. Here is a female Eastern Yellow Robin
Getting seed from some Barb-wire Grass, Red-browed Firetail Finches are regulars in the garden.
Always trying to get my attention when I am in my office, Tiny the King Parrot likes to sit and watch until I say hello.
April was another wet month but not as wet as March. The ground around the house is still soggy thanks to rain last night. Thankfully a few days of little or no rain made it possible to mow the jungle around the house but it is still too wet to get the chainsaw out to cut firewood for Winter.
I have lots of logs to choose from nearby that have been the fallen trees after the fire. They are nicely seasoned now and will make good burning timber once I can get to them.
Here is your April music to scroll through the photos. I think you will enjoy this one. I haven’t heard it before so a new one for me too.
Here’s an appropriate car so jump in and let’s get going.
Tiny wants me to get off the computer and hand out some seeds for his breakfast.
Another photo from my office. This time through the door of a Satin Bowerbird.
Lots of birds have been making Durranbah a place to rest, eat and have a bit of a song. Golden Whistlers songs fill the bush. This is a female Golden Whistler
The little Brown Honeyeaters like to sip from Pentas flowers
Especially in the early morning
It was good to see a group of Grey-crowned Babblers in my garden
They like to rip apart the Stringybark trees looking for insects or walk about on the ground flicking over leaves and bits of bark.
Another visitor is a number of
Sometimes they look quite serious
A little Silvereye was digging around in some leaves that were bound with web. I kept watching and it found lunch
Always have to include my favourite in the garden, an Eastern Yellow Robin
I heard that the Magpie Geese had arrived at a wetland near Casino, about 100kms north of my place. There is a wetland near Grafton where they spend their Winter so I went to see if they had arrived. I found an Australian Raven silhouetted in a tree on a grey day.
There were a flock of Plumed Whistling Ducks
and a large group of Magpie Geese
They kept on flying in. It looks lie a sequential shot but it is actually three Magpie Geese
In another piece of still inundated farmland in South Grafton, a Pacific Heron is getting lots to eat. I drive past this place when I go to town. This morning I went in early and was able to get a few photos of the birds who I have seen there in the past few times heading into town.
I was so pleased to see a pair of Comb-crested Jacanas foraging among the reeds
There were a number of Black Swans foraging as well
Soon she was joined by her mate
OK back at home there have been a few butterflies but not as many as I would have tough. Probably because of the rain. I was happy to see a Wanderer
The strange looking Leafwing Butterfly was heading past and stopped for a photo
There were a few Black Jezebels in the garden. This one stayed for a while on the Bottlebrush flowers.
This is what the Black Jezebels look like with their wings folded.
This is the inside view. They are like this because when they fly it is similar to a strobe effect to confuse predators.
One of my favourite bees, a Teddy Bear Bee zooms in on a Pentas flower
While my other favourite, a Blue-banded Bee enjoys a Salvia flower
Over at the dam the frogs aren’t as vocal but the dragonflies are in abundance. A Black-headed Skimmer found a twig to rest upon.
A Red Skimmer decided a reed was the place of choice
It took a lot of photos to get a dragonfly zipping around the dam.
The Cape Waterlilies are in bloom this Autumn
I have a couple of Golden Corn plants and this year they have flowered
The Pink Trumpet bushes have had one of the best flowering. Looks like I need to water them a lot more to get lots of flowers like this. The bushes have hundreds of flowers
It is always lovely to see native flowers pop up
I was sitting at the computer when this bloke decided to walk around my desk
Well, Our Moon is up, so I better get going. I hope you enjoyed a look at what I found in April. As always I would like to know your favourite photo or photos.
The Changing Seasons is a monthly project where bloggers around the world share their thoughts and feelings about the month just gone. We all approach this slightly differently — though generally with an emphasis on the photos we’ve taken during the month.
For many of us, looking back over these photos provides the structure and narrative of our post, so each month is different. Some focus on documenting the changes in a particular project — such as a garden, an art or craft project, or a photographic diary of a familiar landscape.
But in the end, it is your changing season, and you should approach it however works for you.
There are no fixed rules around post length or photo number — just a request that you respect your readers’ time and engagement.
Tags and ping-backs
Tag your photos with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them
Create a ping-back to Ju-Lyn or this post, so that she can update it with links to all of yours.
The favourite spot on my place. I haven’t done any work down there for quite a while as after the fire of December 2019 it made me too sad to go down there.
Looking at these photos does bring back happy memories and a bit of motivation to see what work needs to be done.
It is good to share. A White-throated Honeyeater and a Yellow-faced Honeyeater
Just drink, don’t look at your reflection. Those rocks look slippery. A White-throated Honeyeater
A Fuscous Honeyeater sips
A Red-browed Firetail Finch get really into drinking
Is the colour you like bold or subdued. Should a photo stand out on it’s own or blend the colours? Does it sit at the front or stay in the back for someone to discover? I think I like colour. My house is colourful and my garden is colourful.
I don’t know where to start or what I am doing but lets see where this post takes you and me.
Let’s kick off with selective colour, one of my favourite effects
A fluffy Eastern Yellow Robins yellow just stands out more
Just the red on a Black Jezebel butterfly stands out
A leaf stuck on a window after a storm looked interesting but more so with selective colour I feel
Red always stands out
But can also be subtle
But is never missed
Green can be quite fluorescent
or just be a hint of colour
Some blues are hello
but also quiet
It’s a hello yellow
or try to find me in the grass
or among the trees
A pink to catch the eye
or to gently cascade
and be small and dainty
or pop out among the others
As Anne said the colours in rust are a favourite
Small and white a discovery
or be a showy presence in the garden
and have a subtle blend
with pastels and strong green to stand out
and a mix of colours that attract the eye
or add colour to a dull day
But a riot of colours that make you look more than once is always a favourite
Well that was a bit of a long post but I hope you enjoyed a bit of the colours in my life or actually in bushboys world
March has been very uninspiring for taking photos. It has seemingly been raining for the whole month. The first few days I was isolated at home without power or phone, landline and mobile plus landslides had blocked the highway to town for two days. I managed to get to town and charged my phone in the car, buy ice took keep food and drinks cold and ring my bestie as well as charge my camera battery. I didn’t take any photos of the floodwaters as I went into town did what I had to and out in case the river topped the levee and I was stuck in a flooded town.
The rain has been relentless for the month there has been 511mls of rain. The ground is saturated so water is just sitting on the ground. As I write the rain has gotten heavier again. It looks like the lower catchment will be experiencing flooding again by Thursday so those poor people will have to pack up again, move their cattle and horses to high ground and prepare to be inundated again.
On the few moments where the rain had stopped with brief sunshine the garden became alive. All of this months Changing Season are from here.
The most appropriate song for you to scroll through this months Changing Seasons photos.
I thought I would start at the ground and work my way up.
This is the only photo not at my place. We went to Macleay Island but it was a working few days but I managed to find a interesting fungus
I am going to do a whole post on the life in the Ivory Curl tree. As there aren’t many photos for this month here are a few showing the insects that enjoy feeding on the flowers. The butterfly on the left is a Small Green-banded Blue together with possibly a Long-tailed Pea Blue Butterfly. Both butterflies have the most glorious blue/violet inner wing colour that flashes when they fly around the garden.
The wonderful colours of the Small Green-banded Blue Butterfly
Yes that is a Durranbah or Jumping Ant in the tree taking the remains of a Line Blue Butterfly back to the nest. This was at eye level and these ants really have a seriously savage bite, like a hot needle poked into your skin which lasts for ages
Back onto cute and friendly, a Blue-0banded Bee checking out the Pentas flowers
A couple of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters discussing the pros and cons of Bottlebrush flowers
A young Blue-faced Honeyeater and a Yamba Gold Grevillea. The yellow patch on the face gradually turns a greenish colour then becomes blue.
One rare sunny morning an Eastern Yellow Robin stopped by to say hello. One of my favourite birds in the garden.
I was in my office in the early afternoon and I noticed something run down an old palm tree. I grabbed my camera and snuck out onto the verandah hoping what it was would reappear. Shortly a Yellow-footed Antechinus ran up the trunk a short way and down again into the garden and I didn’t see where it went after that.
Well today, the last day of the month, the skies cleared and there was blue sky and sunshine at least until the late afternoon when a bit of drizzle washed over my place.
I took advantage of a bit of sunshine to grab a few last minute photos. Whenever there has been a break in the rain, butterflies make the most of the time. Orchard Swallowtail Butterflies, the largest can always be seen flitting around the garden. This one took a moment to rest on a Frangipanni.
This year the Blue Ginger flowers have been at their very showy best in the garden.
Of course after a lot of rain and a few warm days, the fungi appear. This is a new one I found this morning in the garden. The flies seem to love it as well.
I posted some photos in early March for Hammad’s Weekend Sky which were a bit more dramatic than he soft patchwork of pastels that were over head. So instead of my usual finish of a sunset or Our Moon, it’s a sunrise finish.
As always, thanks for looking through my March and if you had a favourite, can you please let me know in the comments.
This for The Changing Seasons hosted jointly by Ju-Lyn – Touring My Backyard and myself
About The Changing Seasons
The Changing Seasons is a monthly project where bloggers around the world share their thoughts and feelings about the month just gone. We all approach this slightly differently — though generally with an emphasis on the photos we’ve taken during the month.
For many of us, looking back over these photos provides the structure and narrative of our post, so each month is different. Some focus on documenting the changes in a particular project — such as a garden, an art or craft project, or a photographic diary of a familiar landscape.
But in the end, it is your changing season, and you should approach it however works for you.
There are no fixed rules around post length or photo number — just a request that you respect your readers’ time and engagement.
Tags and ping-backs
Tag your photos with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them
What a wet month so there’s not many photos to share this month. Almost 300mls of rain in the last week and everyone is preparing for flooding, except me as I am high in the foothills. The normally dry gullies have been roaring at time and all the dams are overflowing. The ground squelches as I walk about. Just now the rain is thundering on the corrugated iron roof.
Your February song to enjoy while having a peek at my February.
During February we went to Macleay Island in Morton Bay where my bestie has a cottage. We went there to do a few repairs and speak to tradies so not much time for photos. To get there with all the tools and gear we took the ferry
One morning I managed to see a sunrise and get a photo
Near the small cottage we rented the trees had some fabulous shapes
Another favourite tree on the block and in the streets are Scribbly Gums
Just behind the cottage in the garden, the Bush Stone-curlews like to rest during the day. They are never impressed when I turn up with my camera
Maybe a bit more later but now from my place a Willie Wagtail on a post
A Hoya plants flower in a hanging pot on the verandah attracted a Yellow-faced Honeyeater. The photo was taken through the office door hence the poor quality.
I think he really liked that branch
An Azure Kingfisher has been around my place for most of Summer
I wonder if they care about the water beetles in the old swimming pool
While I was out on the verandah this fly kept landing near me so I guess he wanted his photo taken
While out in the garden Blue-banded Bees buzzed about the red Pentas flowers
and Orchard Swallowtail Butterflies flitted from pink Pentas flower to flower
The morning sun on the Hoya flowers looked a treat
I went into town to try and find some Square Odds for a post (look for my last post) and found the yellow Frangipanni near where I used to work with their wondrous flowers
I am not sure what type of flower these are but I think they are a small Orchid. I have lots in my garden
Walking around Macleay Island on an abandoned building there was signs of an old garden. These Gladioli looked so lovely with their soft pink petals, a colour I have never seen before.
Well it’s time to get going so here is a pastel sunset with the four trees I highlighted earlier in a post this month
and back to where we started, a fiery sunset through the trees from Macleay Island
Thanks for having a look at me February. I hope you enjoyed the song. I always ask if you had a favourite photo so did you?
I often forget to include this part of Changing Seasons
About The Changing Seasons
The Changing Seasons is a monthly project where bloggers around the world share their thoughts and feelings about the month just gone. We all approach this slightly differently — though generally with an emphasis on the photos we’ve taken during the month.
For many of us, looking back over these photos provides the structure and narrative of our post, so each month is different. Some focus on documenting the changes in a particular project — such as a garden, an art or craft project, or a photographic diary of a familiar landscape.
But in the end, it is your changing season, and you should approach it however works for you.
There are no fixed rules around post length or photo number — just a request that you respect your readers’ time and engagement.
Tags and ping-backs
Tag your photos with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them
I have been contemplating for a while where that special place may be. There are many places that mean something to me but trying to put it down to one, I would have to say here. I, like Karina, am a home body. I enjoy my existence and the life that surround me.
The garden is a special place as is the water hole down the lower part of my property. I’ll start with a bit of the garden as over the past few months I have show many parts of my garden and the flowers and plants I have so this is a snapshot.
Now to the waterhole
To see a bit more, see this post from yesterday Into the woods if you did see it.
bushboys world 