Monday, March 1, 2010

A Wet Afternoon

This weekend just past we did our usual thing and got out and about.
It was intermittently drizzling and the weather was quite cool (not compared to the northern hemisphere, but to the high temperatures we have had recently).

We headed up to the Dandenongs, a range of mountains on Melbourne’s eastern outskirts. It is a beautiful spot with fantastic views. On Saturday though, the cloud cover was too low to give us the chance to see the vista. My fall back position was to photo Mountain Ash trees standing in the mist. That didn’t eventuate either.

The day wasn’t a complete washout, Deb and I stopped for a coffee and went for a stroll in some gardens in between some showers of rain.

There were a number of native flowers in bloom including these Banksias.
Banksias were named for Sir Joseph Banks who explored the east coast of Australia with Captain Cook in 1770. Banks was the most famous naturalist of his period. He collected many specimens including Banksia around Botany Bay when the Endeavour stopped there on Cook's First Voyage.

Another variety of Banksia in the same area.
This piccie shows an un-opened bud, an open blossom and a withering flower.
Foraging around the flowers for nectar was this New Holland Honey Eater. Normally these little fellows are extremely active. They can be quite hard to photograph, which is why I was happy to post about one before.This fellow was fluffed up against the rain and just sat and watched me as I moved around for another shot.
If you click on either of the photos to enlarge it you can see the rain splashing down and spots of wet on his tail feathers.

14 comments:

Alyssa Ast said...

Wow those are beautiful. I could definitely let my photography obsession take over in a place like that. Thank you so much for sharing!

Kristen M. said...

I love the Honey Eater's eye! These piccies are awesome.

Adele said...

Very pretty pictures!

Sarah Ahiers said...

Great pics!
I miss flowers...

Elspeth Futcher said...

Those photos are magnificent!

DJ Kirkby said...

Really like the photos of the honey eater bird. Sweet.

Al said...

Hi All,
Thank you very much for your praise :)
You guys make it a joy to share.

roffe said...

Hi..Great shots...It's getting warmer here up north, over freezing point today..

Deb said...

Amazing photography! Your subjects look very exotic to this cold climate Canuck :)

Al said...

Hi Roffe,
Pleased to hear things are just a little warmer up there.

Hi Deb,
Bizarrely Mt Dandenong where I took these photos is considered to be a cold wet spot. It's not quite snow country, but it is fairly high.

Heidenkind said...

Banksias are cool! They look like little bottle-brushes.

Lisa said...

Those Banksias are so cool! I have never seen anything like them.

MJ said...

Never seen that flower before...looks poisonous!
hehehe I think the bird knows that your going to post it....
Once again a beautiful nature pictures...

Thanks for sharing and happy blogging

Al said...

Hi Tasha,
Banksias are cool, very cool. It's funny you say that about bottle-brushes. There are another family of Oz flowers called "bottle-brushes". They look just like, well bottle-brushes.

Hi Lisa,
Cool is right. Oz has thousands of species of plants that are found nowhere else. Some of them are really spectacular.

Hi Khim,
Banksia are only found in OZ.
They aren't poisonous. In fact you can suck sweet nectar straight out of the flowers, just like the honey eater does.