Nancy’s Photo a Week Challenge: Something New
Welcome Swallows
Brown Honeyeaters
Spangled Drongos
\Pied Currawong
Fig Bird
Tag: postaday
The wooden ball
The Photo a Day Challenge for 12/9: Made of Wood
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Traditions
The Photo a Week Challenge: Traditions
The Buddha Festival in South Korea celebrating the Buddha’s life. One of the traditions is the Lotus flower. This is a rehearsal for the Lotus Lantern parade. The Lotus flower opening
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The Bushfires and Sunset on Saturday
Here on the North Coast of New South Wales there are fires in the hinterland and on the tablelands. With current drought conditions, a lack any rain and very strong westerly winds has rendered the bush so dry that any fires have been started have just raced away burning thousands of hectares of bush land as well as in some instances houses and farms. The fact that anyone would light fires in these conditions infuriates me. My place is so dry and as the droughts grip tightens a natural process for eucalypt trees in to drop their leaves creating another layer of dry material and texture on the already dry forest floor. The strong wind has also blown dust from the west. What I thought were clouds on Saturday morning was a combination of dust and smoke which stung the eyes and you could almost taste the dust in the air. The feature photo is what we awoke to. Normally we can see the hills beyond the last line of trees you can see.
These fires combined with dust blown from the farmlands over the range have created amazing sunsets. On Saturday the early part of the afternoon’s sunset the colours in the smoke and dust was amazing almost psychedelic
The smoke and dust layers colours were just amazing
The intensity of the sunset even coloured the Blue-faced Honeyeater whose underparts are white
Just in case you hadn’t seen a Blue-faced Honeyeaters colours
The sun came from the fires smoke and dust layers
Two Welcome Swallows sat on the power line for a silhouette in the sunset
The sun, behind the fence posts silhouette, is almost down giving the clouds a dark and foreboding look
The fierce fiery intensity of the sun going down gave hope for a less eventful day on Sunday
Contributions for Debbie’s Six Word Saturday
Nancy’s Photo a Week Challenge: Texture
Lens Artists Photo Challenge #62: Silhouettes
Ragtag Sunday Infuriate
Ragtag Thursday: Psychedelic
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Reflections at the waterhole
The August Photo a day Challenge from Maria at CitySonnet for the 29th: Reflections
When life gets you down
head down to the waterhole
A place where life gathers
A place where the day dissolves
Find yourself a rock
even though the water
is diminishing with drought
Sit
wait
listen to the bush
Hear the sounds of life
immerse yourself in life
The bush is never quiet
the buzzing of insects
the crunch of leaves
as animals and lizards
move about
The smell of the dry bush
the sounds of plants dying
dropping leaves and branches
surviving
waiting
The Rains will come
one day.
So for now
sit and reflect
your heart will not
be heavy for long
Cry if you want
let the bush
wash over
Sit and listen on
the rock by the waterhole.
Here they come
finding a place to be
a small puddle
of life
reflecting.
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Bits of yellow in my day
The Photo a Week Challenge from Nancy: Yellow
The other day I went into the bush on my place to cut some firewood. The current state of my place is dry and dead looking. I did a bit of a drive around and went to see how the waterhole is holding up. It was the saddest I have ever seen it. This is a waterhole that has never dried up since I have lived here. Normally the water is up to the rocks in the foreground.
While I was there looking in dismay, suddenly the air was filled with bird calls and a small flock of Fucous Honeyeaters came down to get a drink and have a bath
Yellow-faced Honeyeaters and White-throated Honeyeaters also arrived. Many other small birds were darting about as well.
Meanwhile I still had a job to do so it was back into the forest and cut firewood. Once I got back home, the next task was to split the wood so it would fit into the fire. Always be careful when splitting wood as you never know what may be still inside. One blow from the block splitter and the timber split and dropped from the chopping block onto the ground. I noticed a bit of movement in one of the pieces of wood. The telltale yellow legs of a Centipede. They can give a nasty bite so it is best to let them get on with their business. 
As this was going to go into the fire at some stage, I moved the piece of wood away from the woodpile so the Centipede could find somewhere else to live.
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Still Life
What was that?
It’s not often I do a combined photo challenge.
So we have Sheryl’s Daily Word Prompt: Vanish
and Nancy’s Photo a Week Challenge: Timing is Everything
and Franks Tuesday Photo Challenge: Overhead
One day I was sitting in the garden
When from overhead
I heard something buzzing
growling, perhaps a deep throated roar.
I looked towards the horizon
Nothing
I looked towards the mountains
Nothing.
Hold steady I said
The sound began to get louder
That strange buzzing
growling, perhaps a deep throated roar.
I held my camera to my eye
Hold steady I said
Timing is everything
The sound was almost overhead
I waited
from the tree tops
The sound was there
I held my nerve
I saw it as it flew overhead
Timing is everything
Quick get that shot
before it could vanish.
The sound started to wane
That strange buzzing
growling, perhaps a deep throated roar
In great excitement
I looked at my camera
opened the screen to reveal……….
Timing is everything
when something is overhead
otherwise it will vanish.
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Unexpected
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
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Twisted
The Photo a Week Challenge word prompt from Nancy: Twisted
Twisted in nature
Twisted by me
