Tag: bee

What a mixed month it was. It was hot for most of the month and I spent a lot of time mowing as the grass is just growing like crazy. Unfortunately I manage to break the cutter belt on the ride-on mower and the repair shop can’t get to it until next week. It need a good service anyway.

One thing I have noticed that there has been a lack of insects especially butterflies. Usually I have a good amount of butterflies and other beetles around now.

Towards the end of the month storms arrived. There have been some real doozies. Yesterday afternoon the Bureau of Meteorology actually put out a severe storm warning for my area. Luckily there was a lot of thunder, not much wind or rain.

Here’s your December scrolling song by Counting Crows

Starting with sunrise on Christmas Day. I know I posted it before but it was rather special

One of my favourite flowers that appear in December are the Cassia flowers. I love the bright yellow buds wearing their little hats.

The delicate flowers open with welcoming arms for the pollinators

This section is the Bromiliad section. I have quite a number now.
First up is the one with a brilliant red at the base of the leaves. The little purple flowers burst out in the bottom of the dish. Notice the spikes on the leaves. This is a handle with gloves plant.

No red centre for this one. The flowers are similar.

The red centre of this one is all leaves with little white flowers. Spiky leaves that don’t mind giving a stab if you’re not careful

Still wrapped up and will appear next week probably.

A Bromiliad that many people didn’t know was a Bromiliad – Ananas comosus. (that’s often a trick question in quizzes. What fruit is ananas) Other fun facts: they come from South America and Thailand is the worlds biggest grower of pineapples.
I planted a Pineapple top in the garden a long time ago, at least ten years, and I have “harvested” four pineapples as it takes two years to form a fruit here. They are tiny, this one will maybe double in size. All those little berries will fuse and form the Pineapple as you know it.

End of Bromiliad section

I bought a Hydrangea at a market. It was doing a bit poorly, so I re-potted it and was surprised by a white flower

A couple of Frangipanni flowers. Another coloured one is not quite open yet but the four red ones are splashes of colour through the garden.

The first flower of a Frangipanni I planted this year. It had a bit of a hard time with hot weather and a lack of water. The flower looked lovely, by the time I remembered to get a photo, it looked a bit worse for wear after a few hot days.

The Paperbark Trees – melaleuca sp – had lots of flowers which was appreciated by so many insects, ant, beetles and bees as well as birds. It has a bottlebrush type flower

The Variegated Duranta has constantly filled with the sounds of buzzing bees.

Summer in Australia. Cicadas are the sound of summer in Australia. This Cicada shell was in the garden on the Pentas bush.

Tiny the King Parrot is always ready for a portrait

This is Satty, the Satin Bowerbird. He has taken up residence and every now and then I put a bit of fruit out and between him and Oscar the Bearded Dragon they have a snack on the verandah

A pair of rainbow Lorikeets were hanging around for about a week. They can be a bit noisy.

An irregular visitor are Scaly-breasted Lorikeets. These are sweet little parrots that are often seen hanging around with Rainbow Lorikeets.

Watching the eastern Whipbirds in the bird bath is so amusing at the antic they get up to

“Now, at the Olympics diving, the diver stood backwards and then did he go this way and flip into the water?” “Or was that the bloke doing the 80 metre cliff dives kissing his ass goodbye?”

The Little Friarbird was busy collecting nesting material from the garden.

Near the end of December the Bottlebrush flowers have started to wane. The Blue-faced Honeyeaters were getting the last of the nectar.

The Leaden Flycatchers are still patrolling the garden. This is the male. Last month the female Leaden Flycatcher was featured.

It was lovely to see a Wonga Pigeon come wandering down the drive to see if there were any figs from the Fig Tree. The figs are very small orange fruit. I don’t think they would be nice to eat but birds love them.

A Male Figbird among the figs. They can be heard chatting away in the mornings and evenings as the have a fig feast.

“NO paparazzi!!!”

An unexpected sight was an Azure Kingfisher just hanging on the verandah one morning

I wonder if the Square-tailed Kite was flying around

Now we are heading into the realm of lizards and maybe a snake. *obligatory warning given*

I was trying to keep a folder of the house Velvet Geckos as I don’t know if the one in the hall is the same as my bedroom. Is the one behind the butterfly ID chart always there? This is Keith who lives in the loungeroom. I am going to see if their patterns on their backs is the same.

Going up in size, this is Oscar who hangs out on the verandah ever since he was ever so tiny. He has the “I am ruler of all I can see” look. He is having a moult. The skin on his tail is all that is left of the old skin.

Getting bigger still, every now and then a Goanna will wander through the garden. This almost two metre Goanna has fabulous markings. The best thing is that when they sense you they use their best defence, run away. I didn’t think I would have time to get a photo, he was off at a good pace.

Caution cute carpet Python curled up in a flower pot ahead.

It was almost bedtime. I heard a loud “plop” onto the verandah. Usually it’s a possum jumping onto the verandah. But this time there wasn’t a sound after. This was quite different.
I had a look from my bedroom door that open onto the verandah and I saw a shape I recognised.
Turning on the light, I saw this long Carpet Snake, at least 2 metres but it was hard to tell as it was part curled and part stretching out, looking for something.
There is a pot plant in the corner and water was in the dish under the pot as I watered the plant that afternoon. I thought it was going for a drink. The snake stretched so a bit of it was up and across the pot. Then it started to wind itself around until all of that big snake was in the pot. It wasn’t long after that a storm hit.

Here is two metres of snake in a twelve inch pot

I guess I should ahve a cute section after that for those of you with a certain disposition.
There has been a Female Red-necked Wallaby in the garden with her now big Joey. One morning I saw the big male in the garden having a feast on the grass.

The Brush-tailed Possum I thought may have jumped onto the verandah. Since the Carpet Snake has been spending Spring in the roof space, there hasn’t been any Possum activity up there. I had a look and I did see the Carpet Snakes skin hanging from a truss.

As you may have guessed, sunset signals the end of my December. I don’t get to see sunset except through the trees. This day the clouds above the trees were coloured.

Thanks for getting to the end. A lot of Decembers photos have already been used in various posts this month so it made cutting down a lot easier this month.

As usual, did you have a favourite photo?

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

Create a ping-back to Ju-Lyn at Touring My Backyard  or this post, so that we can update it with links to all of yours.