Nancy’s Photo a Week Challenge: Off-center
I thought I’d just post two photos that I think are off-center but a very different. I would like to know your thoughts mainly about this photo of Eastern Curlews coming into land. If it’s not off-center what would you call it?
This is a bit obviously off-center but is it too much off-center?
The Photo a Week Challenge from Nancy: Unexpected
I love the unexpected in photos. Most time I don’t realise until I download and see the photo on the big screen. The featured photo. I was taking photos of bees in the Bangalow Palm flowers and didn’t see the Eastern Dwarf Green Tree Frog sitting among the flowers
The insect on the Dandelion
So often there is a small spider in a flower
I guess it must be unexpected for a spider to have someone poke around
Going for the sun through the Grevillea flower and get photo-bombed by a dragonfly
Not the best fisher on the river that day
Another photo-bomb, this time a bee
I was taking photos of Banana flowers and didn’t notice until I enlarged that there was a murder taking place. An Assassin Bug has an ant. Most unexpected
The Photo a Week Challenge from Nancy: Depth of Field
Depth of Field is one of the first things I tried to come to grips with when I started out taking photos with a SLR camera that didn’t have the wizz bang technology that digital cameras have now. Sometimes I get it right lol
A Rose Robin through a window
Down on the ground with a Dandelion
Hanging with the Ginger flowers
The flowers of an Egg and Bacon plant
Bee and grass flowers before it becomes a seed head
A Caper White Butterfly and a Pentas flower
The lovely little Eastern Yellow Robin
January. A month of hardly any rain, only 6mm over 2 days at my place, whereas the average is around 120mm and it rains most days. It was also freakingly hot. Days in succession of over 38C to a top of 42C here. There were some magic moments, a bit of travelling and the return of the butterflies. I spent a lot of my time watering my garden and plants in shade house. The dam became low so I was thinking of water rations to the plants. I became the bad parent having to decide which plants would get water and those who I hoped would survive.
Among all of this I did manage to get out and about and take quite a number of photos. Looking through the folders, I decided that I would have to do special posts that encompassed some of my days out and about, as I have a lot of things I want to show you this month. It has taken me a long time to decide on what I want to put into this post.
Yep……it’s another huge lot of photos. So once again, get a cup of tea or coffee (I have a coffee while writing this) perhaps a snack (I have already eaten my biscuits). For those reading in the evening, a glass of wine will help sustain while scrolling through this mammoth month. I shall try to keep the captions short.
Ready. All sitting comfy. Lets go
I best start off with a bit of morning and sunrise through the trees. I don’t get to see the full splendor of sunrise living in the bush or in a forest for those non-Australians
I liked this morning photo as it has a sliver of our Moon. Can you see it?
This is what our Moon looked like up close
Seeing a full moon in the morning was fabulous. A great start to the day.
While visiting my daughter in Toowoomba, we spent time walking about the streets looking at street art (a post of those wonderful art works to come) and strolling though the many gardens and parks.
I was glad to see that Yarn Bombing was still happening and Council was leaving them in place.
I just had to get a photo of this carrot that was on top of the vege display at the local Farmers Market
The distant hills have sentinel like Grass Trees over looking the valley. Grass Trees grow at around 25mm (1 inch) a year. Some of these are probably 2+ meters tall so ancient wonders on the other side of the valley from my besties place.
Now for the flowers.
The many colours and shapes of (I think) a Gazania
Despite the heat, a red Frangipanni buds and flowers appeared.
The photo doesn’t capture the wonderful red colour.
The flower of a Eucalypt, not sure which one, with a bee. There was lots of bees around in January too.
Just a wonderful flower.
Bougainvilleas flowered well in the heat and dry.
I have many photos of Native Frangipannis but have never seen a seed pod before
The Dahlias in my daughters garden
I saw a flower and while I was looking, some kids came along and said “Look brain flowers”. Yep Brain Flowers or Cockscomb or a Celosia flower.
Also came in red.
More bees and flowers
This one was getting stuck into the pollen at my besties
A Wattle Line-blue Butterfly enjoying a Brain flower. Did you spot the butterfly earlier?
An Orange Ochre stopped to enjoy the afternoon sun
A Cabbage White Butterfly flitted about the garden
and stopped to have a snack
The Dragonflies are all flying around the garden and over the dam. These two stopped for some “relaxation” on a branch on the ground.
Should I have told my visitors that Dragonflies are having sex on their car aerial?
A golden moment with a smiling Dragonfly
The Lesser Wanderers came to feed on the flowers that popped up in the grass.
Wings open to get a bit of sun before take-off.
The Meadow Argus Butterfly seemed to stop anywhere. You can see how dry it has been. The grasses are dead.
With wings open it helps to know what butterfly I have photographed
On the flowers, the Meadow Argus looks lovely.
Another photo of the flowers and butterfly
A Native Australian Bee, a Carpenter Bee flying among the Ponytail Palm flowers with some beetles and ants. Carpenter Bees quite often make their nest in Grass Trees.
Among the dried grasses, the Dandelions still had time to flower (see This is December 2018) and set seed
The branches of a Bunya Pine – Art Direction, my daughter, Photo, me
High in the trees at my besties, late one afternoon, a flock of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos came to roost for the night. Not the best photo as the light was failing and the birds kept moving.
The raucous sounds of the Sulpher-crested Cockatoos sounded all over the park as we strolled about. 
As the weather was hot and dry, the bird bath had to be topped up regularly. The Lewins Honeyeater made enough noise to let us know that there wasn’t much water in the bird bath.
Once the bird bath was filled, the Noisy Miners queued up to get a drink and a bath.
The Silvereyes stopped by to get into the water while a Striated Thornbill waited his turn.
I was spied by an Eastern Rosella who dropped by for a drink
Getting a drink helped show the lovely back feathers pattern.
The Superb Fairy Wrens make a lovely couple.
“Hey babe, check this fancy bit of flying”
“Get out of the way, you’re in my shot”
Do you mind, I’m trying to take a bath here
The King Parrot having a look at what I am doing in my office
Just strolling through the park. Move along, there’s nothing to see here!
The Tortoises sunning on a rock while another is swimming over.
What a face
It has been so hot that I have left nearly all of the windows and doors open. That seemed to be an invitation for a Lesser Long-eared Micro-bat to take up residence in my pantry.
This is one of the reasons I keep some doors closed at night. Brush-tailed Possums like to range about the garden at night. Given half a chance they will wander inside creating chaos.
The Koalas have been active as it’s mating season. I have heard their loud calls at my place. At my besties place we can see this male who has taken up residence occasionally in the trees. Usually asleep, around 18 hours a day, the big feller was not very happy at me walking around taking photos even if he was about 10 meters above me.
Well it’s almost time to say goodbye. A wave from one of the many Geckos who live behind the pictures on the walls.
The sun is setting. Aren’t the colours just wonderful?
The oranges made for a spectacular sunset
I was quite pleased to get a photo of our Moon with the coloured rings. It is a hand held photo. Most time I would use a tripod but didn’t have one handy.
Well it looks like it is getting late so goodnight.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have enjoyed a scroll through bushboys world for January 2019. Did you have a favourite photo?
First of all, thanks to everyone who has been part of my life this year. I have enjoyed sharing my part of this world with you. Your comments and feedback has been quite overwhelming at times. I take photos because I enjoy the results I achieve. I have a basic Canon PowerShot SX60HS which takes great macros, amazing telephotos and does everything I could ask, except focus where I want sometimes. Even then the capture can be a photo that goes into my Arty Ones folder. Some of those are posted in a recent photo challenge – Abstract.
On to December. This month was taken up in part with Becky’s great square format photo challenge #timesquare The featured image is one of the photos from Beckys challenge. Sometime last year I made a suggestion for the challenge which I cannot remember.
I have tried to cut down the number of photos but again it may be a bit of long read, so a drink, perhaps a snack may be in order. All settled back and ready. Join me in looking at This is December 2018
Sunrise is always a good place to start
The wind blew the grass seed heads
One morning, the tiny Line-blue Butterflies were all over the grass area while we were having breakfast. They loved the clover flowers.
A Blue-banded Bee made a morning ritual of visiting the Chinese Lantern flowers. I never was ready to get that photo.
A delicate flowering plant we were told was called Herb Robert. A lovely flower and bud.
A Mistletoe Bird was a visitor for a few days
After the demise of the terracotta bird bath, a tempory replacement was found. A Rainbow Lorikeet looks unsure.
Since the hatching of the Brown Honeyeaters, they have stayed around the garden. This is one of their favourite sitting places in the morning.
Luckily one of the Grevilleas is flowering for them.
I love it when you can see our Moon during the day.
Many people call Dandelions weeds. The flowers add a great splash of colour in the garden.
The Bees love the flowers too. Look at how much pollen has been gathered into the bees pollen sacs.
I think it is wonderful.
A Pumpkin display at the markets. So many varieties to choose from.
This van belongs to one of the market stall holders at The Channon markets. I would love this van.
Now Summer is here and it is hot and dry, the birds have to share the bird bath.
Coming in for a landing
“I made it safely….so what are you looking at?”
The Brown Honeyeaters. An adult and one of the young ones. Always look up to your elders.
This is my bird bath the Magpie Lark (or better known as Pee Wee) is telling everyone.
A spot of grub hunting has paid off.
The Cape Chestnut Tree at The Channon Market was in full bloom.
Now for a couple of native flowers I found at my daughters place. I looked in my books to try and identify so I could tell you their names, but wasn’t successful. I will have to ask an ecologist who said I could send him photos and he would try to tell me their names. Isn’t this one pretty?
Like the above flower, most native flowers are quite small. The one above was about 10 to 15mm from petal tip to petal tip. This little flower is about 5mms
Another tiny flower with an amazing structure
Such a delicate ball of even smaller flowers. Each ball is around 10-15mm in diameter.
The Stingless Native Bees just love the native flowers. The flower seems huge compared to the bee
The start of Summer. The Frangipanni flowers around the garden are stating to emerge.
I love the soft pink and yellow of this Frangipanni flower which has a heavenly fragrance.
The pinks and yellows of this one are much more stronger.
The Pink Frangipanni is stunning.
This Poinciana tree I see on the way home was the best I have seen.
The tiny flowers of one of the Tea Trees I have in my garden is waiting for the bees.
This year, my Agapanthus flowers were the best flowering ever. All through the garden was spots of white and blue
One of the blues.
The tree Begonia decided to have another flowering this December.
I have a number of Datura Erecta plants around the garden. The berries looked lovely one morning. I think they may be poisonous as nothing seem to eat them.
If anyone would, it would be a Fig Bird, seen here keeping an eye on me as I walked about.
The King Parrots are starting to want some food as a couple of people who fed them in the street have since moved on. I give them a small amount of wild bird mix occasionally. Actually I hadn’t been home for a couple of days and this bloke came to the verandah and whistled to get my attention
A migratory visitor to my place are Leaden Flycatchers, This female was scouting the verandah for a snack. Yes a photo taken while I was inside at my desk.
One afternoon as I drove through the front gates, a Forest Kingfisher swooped in front of me and sat in the tree, almost like a welcome home.
The Australian Air force is saying goodbye to the fleet of Orions. One of the planes is going to an Air Museum at Evans Head. It flew into Lismore. This was taken from my besties backyard.
The old swimming pool, which is now a frog pond of sorts, is host to so many water insects and frogs. One of the frog species in the pool is the Perons Tree Frog. I think this may be one just emerging from tadpole to frog.
I am unsure who these beastly looking gang are. Hopefully are dragonflies.
Christmas is always a wonderful time in December. I wasn’t in a Christmas mood this year. My bestie had some decorations at her place. An op-shop angel and some lights looked great.
An Australian Lilli Pilli tree in the corner with some little lights mad the room look bright.
The Full Moon, just before Christmas Day was big and bright.
One of the photo challenges was Abstract – see the opening words – I didn’t include this Moon photo as I thought it was rather special and needed to be in my monthly wrap-up post.
I didn’t have my tripod so just had to have a go hand held. At least one turned out OK lol
Summer arrives and the plants start to thrive so along come the Grasshoppers to have a snack. This one likes Basil….or used to.
Another little Grasshopper from my daughters place. Her garden hasn’t been attacked yet.
The Ponytail Palm has so many flowers, the bees don’t know where to begin. I walked outside and the buzzing was quite loud I looked up and the flower spikes were full of bees.
The Blue-banded bee I couldn’t get in the Chinese Lantern Flower didn’t escape my attention as it buzzed about the Basil flowers.
The Hover Fly loved the garden too
The Palm Trees, the water and the ripples
Late afternoon looking from my besties verandah across the paddocks
The December sun is almost set.
Goodbye December and 2018.
Thanks for being a part of my world. I hope to see you again in 2019.
The word prompt from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Close up or Macro
Isn’t funny how some of the photo challenges come up at the same time. This is great ‘cos I can add a few more macro shots. I didn’t want to over load the last post.
A native Raspberry flower
The Raspberry
The berries from an Australian Native plant
Inside of a Torenia flower
A Dandelion seed head and an insect
The flower of a Caperberry bush
Part of an ornamental Ginger flower
Welcome to my world in June. Not an abundance of photos this time but I do recommend getting comfortable. June was the month where my bestie sold her 103 year old farmhouse in a Rain-forest, where a lot of bird bath and bird photos came from, and moved into her new place which is similar to my climate. It is a newish house but has a bird bath and a great bird attracting garden. So far we have identified 38 birds, some are in this post. As you can see I have been a bit busy helping move house.
The house is still in a rural setting.
This is my first attempt at photographing Dandelion seed heads.
One afternoon the sky became fierce looking. Quite an angry face looking out isn’t it?
The early morning at my place walking through the Blady Grass. It was very dry in the previous months. Green shoots struggled to grow among the dry brown grass.
This native plant is growing in the middle of a paddock. The Autumn saw the stalk covered in white flowers. I hope the seeds have spread and not harvested by ants.
June is the month for the Lismore, a town nearby, Lantern Parade. I didn’t get many good parade photos. There were a number of Orchid lanterns hanging in the trees in the park where the show and fireworks took place.
The fireworks were quite spectacular.
While my bestie was moving house, I was given some, OK a lot, of plants to look after. The Kalenchoe loved being in my sun room and has put on a wonderful display of flowers.
Winter has also brought some other visitors into the house. I usually have native rodents come into the warmth. I have a trap to catch them and then they get taken back into the bush. This time I have had a House Mouse or two in the pantry. This little fat one, I suspect to be a pregnant female, was relocated up the road.
This is the big section of birds for the month of June
The little Silvereyes have really taken to the hanging pot bird bath and drinking place.
The other bigger birds prefer to use this bird bath. A female or juvenile Satin Bowerbird was chatting to someone nearby.
A Yellow-faced Honeyeater takes a drink.
A Yellow-faced Honeyeater at my besties has claimed this branch of a tree.
There has been quite a number of Yellow-rumped Thornbills around my garden
A very cute looking Jackie Winter enjoyed the morning sun on the fence.
While we were walking along a road, we came across a small flock of Variegated Fairy Wrens darting in the grass beside the road. A young one made an appearance on a nearby tree. 
Of course I couldn’t let a post go past without my favourite, an Eastern Yellow Robin. Sadly we had to leave Bobbin behind so maybe this one at my place will be the the new substitute. I haven’t found the right name yet. Any suggestions?
One afternoon a small flock of Red-browed Firetails came looking for grass seeds in the front garden.
A young Lewins Honeyeater found a great lookout atop a red flowering Eucalypt.
The Rainbow Lorikeets came for the Eucalypt flowers too.
A Rufous Whistler singing an early morning song
It was lovely to have a welcome to the new place with a number of Welcome Swallows who zoom around the verandahs and sit on the fence to do their laundry.
Another bloke who likes to sit on the fence to survey the lawn for insects is the Restless Flycatcher. They make the most amazing sound. I tried to make a video but it wasn’t the best sound quality.
An Eastern Rosella wanted to see what we were doing in the new garden.
At my place, a number of Noisy Miners were carrying on. They didn’t like the Kookaburra being too close to their nests.
I thought it was going to be a cold night after finding a Kookaburra family cosying up for the night in the late evening.
A Pacific Black Duck showing a flash of turquoise as it paddled on the creek.
A young Straw-necked Ibis didn’t want me to take its photo as it strolled in a nearby paddock.
This bloke didn’t seem to mind though.
The Sacred Ibis look wonderful as they wheel about in the sky
A Common Tern was fishing down by the estuary. Gliding along and then suddemly plumetting into the water. I didn’t see it catch a fish though.
The Moon and a plane.
Well the sun is almost setting. Thanks for joining me in This is June
Hope to see you next month
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