Hardest one yet?

Well after last week when nearly everybody was close to the mark, this week's WIIW saw no one even in the ball park. 

Hair, wool, and fur were about as close as guesses got.
Even my showing a different part of the piccie didn't help



Hair, wool, and fur were about as close as guesses got.

The mystery is a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) 
These guys are seen around much of the world as a pet.
Like many of the popular pet parrots including budgerigars (usually known in the US as Common Parakeets) and Cockatiels  these guys are Oz natives.

In fact Sulphur Crested Cockys are one of the most common Oz birds. They are so common the Cockies see them as nuisance pests!

Now to avoid confusion I should add in Oz the word "Cocky" means a farmer. We don't have "cowboys" in Oz instead we have "Cow Cockies"!

In Which Al goes batty (again)

A few months ago I posted about a flying fox (fruit bat) colony on the outskirts of Melbourne.
I posted some piccies of very cute flying foxesThen I went back after dark and attempted to get some piccies of the bats leaving on their nightly fruit and nectar foraging missions.

Alas my old camera was not up to the task and the best I got was this.Those funny squiggles are bats flying past a long exposure.

Tonight, I went back again and waited until the sun setAnd the moon came out
And tried again
Now my new camera is light-years ahead of the older model. But it seems I am just asking too much of a stills camera because these are the best I got.At least they are now fuzzy bats rather than squiggles ;-)Having said that I am not at all disappointed.

Because I had fun and…

While I waited for the sun to set some of the other wild life in the area kept me entertained.

This Crested Pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) landed right near my feet.
He/she looked at me and turned around and had another look and must have decided I wasn’t a tree and flew off in a panic!

Then this pair of rainbow lorikeets became very interested in this hollow branch.
One looked Then the other looked And the first looked again.
I guess but don’t know that they are scoping for hollows in which to nest (most Oz parrots nest in tree hollows).

Then in the last light I heard a mournful cry. Looking up I saw a flock of Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) flying high overhead, presumably looking for a roosting spot for the night. These birds are beautiful black cockies with yellow cheek patches and a flashing yellow tail. I’ve seen them many, many times but never managed to photograph them.

That is me for the night. Good night!

Swan Watch XV: Wet Down Under

The record-breaking drought seems to be a long distant memory. Melbourne (and Victoria) are getting weather more reminiscent of our tropical north rather than the Mediterranean-type climate we usually have. We are experiencing large thunderstorm systems passing through every day or two. The downpours on already sodden soils are causing localised flooding.

These couple of shots were taken at the nearby town of Whittlesea the other day. They show a park near the main street. The Plenty River has burst it’s banks and is spreading across the parkland.

Nearby, someone has spread bird-seed. It had attracted some local birds, neither of which I have shared with you before.
Crested pigeons.Aren’t the colours on their wings beautiful?When they fly their wings make a distinctive whistling sound.

And I snapped away and didn’t realise until after that these cockatoos weren’t the long-billed corellas I have shown you before. These guys are actually another species called little corellas.

On the subject of birds our baby swan is still well. Baby is still much shyer than when mother swan was around, which is good, it helps keep him/her safe. He/she is still growing and is getting closer to adult colouring.Just in case you missed my post of last night Kathleen Jones posted a wonderful review and interview on her blogs yesterday. Sorry to keep banging on, but I am excited (Kathleen's Blogs are well worth a look anyway).

Democracy Rules!

Well the result is in!
Fourteen good people have cast their vote.
The results:
Abstentions = 1
Cockatoos and Parrots = 2
Raging Water = 11.

Well that looks like a landslide waterslide for a post about raging water.

Sorry Cockatoo Lovers, you’ll have to wait for another time.

So here we go, on Sunday Deb and I drove out to the old Maroondah Reservoir, near Healesville in the Yarra Valley.

The reason we went was that with the flood rains we have had recently the lake has filled and for the first time in over a decade water is going over the spillway.

From where we parked the car we strolled through the gardens. Spring has sprung (so to speak) and the Rhododendrons are in full bloom.A close up.Past the blossoms we heard the roar of water.

Here was the cause, an artificial waterfall that shoots the water from the dam’s spillway back to the valley floor.
I could get very close to the bottom section of the cascade.Normally there is a path open across the weir to the base of the larger fall But at the moment it is closed because it is too wet and slippery.

Another angle on the lower cascade.Deb and I began the walk up through the gardens towards the dam wall.
We paused to grab some photos of this port-wine magnolia. Then again to have a seat in this summer house. The view back down the stairs towards the valley floor.Through a window in the garden you get a view of the larger waterfall.We crossed the dam wall, and a bridge over the spillway.This fallen tree trunk trails a finger in the racing water.We climbed the path up to the look out. You get a view down over the falls.I took some shots of wattles flowering in the bush. After Eucalyptus trees, Wattles are perhaps the next most widely spread group of plants in Oz. They range in size from small shrubs to substantial trees.

Most varieties flower in this typical yellow colour. The flowers are tiny, each about the size of a fingernail.

Some species have a white flower.I haven’t got any shots, but in spring whole areas in the bush can be golden yellow with wattle blossom.

As a total by-the-way, Australian wattles (which are Acacias) are called wattles because early European settlers used them in the construction of 'wattle and daub' walls in their first houses.

A final shot of me (courtesy of Deb) at the look out. I think I look tired, not from the walk, but from the hectic week I had at work.
Thank goodness for spaces like this near Melbourne so I can unwind on the weekends.

A Much Delayed Award

Absolutely ages ago Rayna of Coffee Rings Everywhere passed on the Sweet Blog Award to me.
Rayna was a bit concerned that I might not like having my blog called a ‘sweet blog’, taking it as a slight on my masculinity (or something). Well Rayna you can rest easy, anyone who spends hours trying to photograph cute fuzzy grey blobs is not going to blink at the epithet ‘sweet’.Now this award was passed on to me with no rules, so I am just going to do what Rayna did and pass it on to some other bloggers whose blogs I enjoy.

In no particular order, I pass this award to:

Amanda at A Library of My Own

Jenifer at Ten lives and Second Chances

Anne at Piedmont Writer

Claudia at Claudia Del Balso

and Pamela Jo at Theres Just Life

By the way Pamela Jo has passed me an award as well that I am well and truly going to have to pass on.
But I am tired tonight, so I am sorry Pamela Jo it will have to wait a bit longer.


Now for something completely different.
I took so many piccies on the weekend that I am going to have to break things into a couple of posts.
Now I am going to put you all on the spot - a quick and informal vote.

Which would you rather I post about first?

Cockatoos and parrots?Or raging water?Have a look at these two teasers and let me know in a comment.

Warnambool (or Uncle Harry's slide night.)

Well I haven’t posted for a few days. My excuse is that I have been off gallivanting. Deb and I enjoyed our run down to the Great Ocean Road the weekend before last, so much that we decided to have a look at the section we didn’t see.

Being almost entirely selfish we left the sprogs at home to fend for themselves and took off mid morning on Saturday.

I have to admit I went totally nuts with the camera and have come back with around 500 photos from about a day and a half. This kind of leaves me with a dilemma of how to share the experience. I suspect it is a little (or a lot) hard to even give a hint of the spectacular coastal scenery without taking a number of posts. The problem is I don’t want to end up with a blog that seems like Uncle Harry’s slide night.

To all those Uncle Harrys out there, no offence is intended and I am sure your slide nights are both educational and entertaining.

We cut across inland to just past the far end of the Great Ocean Road, to Warnambool about 290 km (180 miles) from home.
We took our time stopping along the way for lunch at Inverleigh. I photographed this pub there, Aussie bush pubs do not normally look like this. Built out of Victorian Bluestone and with a Welsh slate roof this is a type of building that was put up mainly from the 1850’s to 1890’s apart from the local stone I suspect it would look just as happy in a village somewhere in the UK.

As we pulled in to the outskirts of Warnambool I spied a flock of cockatoos on a patch of grass by the side of the road. Thinking they were Sulphur-crested Cockatoos I pulled over to get a photo. They were in fact Long-billed Corellas .


The ground was soft from rain the night before and they were digging clover and grass roots for food.

After checking into our accommodation and having a cuppa we went out to Logan’s Beach which is famed for whale watching. From a lookout up in the sand dunes we quickly spotted whales just off shore. In fact a mother and calf were just beyond the surf maybe 15 to 20 metres from the beach.I think from the tip of a nose they were Southern Right Whales.
They just mucked around just beyond the breakers for more than half an hour.
Eventually a very cold wind drove us away from the shore.

Well Uncle Harry has had a long day, so that is all for now.
I’ll just leave you with a hint of what I might talk about next time.