Life in the garden

I was lucky enough to be given some plants today so that made me spend a bit of time in my garden. Once the plants (gerberas) were planted and mulch spread around them to make them feel comfortable, I dashed inside to grab the camera. The camera was not for these little new plants but for some naughty creatures that were munching their way along the big fleshy leaves of a spider lily plant.

It is possible to see the devastation these long creepy caterpillars are creating. This is a long leaf and only a few of the caterpillars are shown. There are lots of leaves and lots of caterpillars. Guess who will be using a spray can of insecticide tomorrow! I couldn't do it today because I wanted a photograph and I did try to encourage a nearby butcher bird to come down and help himself but he preferred the grasshoppers! The sprays I use are bird and lizard friendly. I am very reluctant to spray insects, preferring instead to let the natural predators do the work - but when it comes to such an act of vandalism as this . . .  action has to be taken! There are too many of them to go around squashing them!
There are many beautiful things in the garden at the moment. It is a real pleasure to be out there pulling up weeds and snipping off dead heads!

This is a Gloxinia and was bought in a moment of weakness last year. I bought two of them and after giving us a few weeks of colour they died back. I thought I had seen the end of them but being lazy did not dig them up and put something else in their place - just as well because they have been reborn! The strange thing is that this one, the first to flower, has reversed its colours. Last year it was purple and white but the throat was white and the edges of the petals were white! I wait with impatience to see if the red gloxinia has altered too!
Another of the beautiful flowers in my front garden is this daylily.

I think I might have eight different coloured daylilies and they are all "stunning". The individual flowers look fantastic for only one day - hence their name - and in the morning are completely withered and hang limply from their stem. Fortunately each stem has several flower buds so there is a reasonable flowering time. Over the years my plants have multiplied and I have spread clumps all through the garden beds so there are lots of flowers through November and into December. I love 'em!
Before I stop!
When Colin was putting the clippings through the mulcher (all my garden clippings go back onto the garden!) he found this little fellow.

This spider is very small - maybe one centimeter leg tip to leg tip. It looked a little like a tiny crab!
AJ

Change of identity

Byron has had a haircut today. This morning he was a cuddly, fluffy dog but by lunchtime his time with the pretty girls in at the poodle parlour resulted in a change of appearance - and a drastic change in personality. Byron is not in the least fazed by the thought of losing all his woolly coat, he marched through the doors of the salon with so much determination that I felt a wee bit jealous! No shrinking violet, he! In the early days he would have to be towed through the doors and would cry when one of the girls took his lead to take him into the shearing part of the shop - but these days he trots off with anyone with no backward glance. He knows I will be back.
Time for a few photos to show the difference a haircut made to him.
Before . . . . .

and after . . . . .

Now can you see what I am saying? These pictures were taken on the same day, the long hair shot was taken at breakfast time (I replaced the background! it was messy) The second shot was taken about one thirty just as I brought him home. The bandanna makes a colourful touch - that was put on by one of the salon girls. See how Byron's eyes look brighter and his shoulders no longer hunched - this next shot will show you the difference in his stance - he is a young dog again! (Byron is ten going on eleven years old.)

He even looks as if his nose is longer (maybe I brought the wrong dog home!)
When I was paying for his haircut the girl who had looked after him held up a little plastic bag with a round grey coloured insect in it - she had found a tick on Byron's chest. We had chosen to have him clipped at exactly the right time. Another day and that tick would have injected its poison and Byron would have lost the use of his legs then would be unable to swallow and a couple of days later, die. Treatment is hugely expensive but necessary and mostly is successful. (Hundreds of dollars in vet fees).
The clip is our way of being able to watch for these killer insects on Byron. When long, his coat is just too curly and thick to be able to feel a tick on his skin.
AJ

Macro monster

I took the advice of the comment with my photos of the dragonfly and when a strange and hairy little critter was spotted in the dogs water dish I fished it out and reached for the Samsung NV3 and while bugsy was trying to find the OTHER side of the shopping docket I one handedly pressed the macro button and got close and personal.
What a fast moving thing it was - those long hairs at the front (I think it was the front!) were waving all over the place so I didn't think I would get a decent shot of him but you can see them quite well in the second shot. No way would I have managed to get this close with the SLR - I would have had to take a shot from about five feet away and crop the image severely - as I did with the dragonflies.
No I don't think I will bother with spending heaps of money on a macro lens when my "reserve" camera will do the job I want!
AJ

Colour and distraction

I know I have "raved on" about the birds visiting my home previously but I cannot get enough of them! My ears are so used to their high pitched screaming that their din does not worry me any more - unless I am trying to have a conversation with someone or answering the phone! My last photo of the Lorikeets was of them during rain when their feathers were all dull so it is only right an proper that I should show how they really look!
It seems a shame that the name "King Parrot" should be given to a bird that only has two colours to show off while these superb and showy birds are mere "subjects" with a most incredible ornithological name "Thrichoglossus Haemotodus" (fortunately not known by most of us humans), so it is a good thing that we have given them a good old Ozzy name "Rainbow Lorikeet". Most of our common bird names are so obvious that if you say "Oh look there is a little finch with red eye brows" you will not be surprised if the bird book tells you that it is a "red Browed Finch"!!!! I was to begin with - but have got used to it!
Take another look at the Rainbow Lorikeets - can you see the one hanging upside down from the wire? and the one on this side standing sideways and reaching in for food? They are having a really fun time on that wire cage. The big Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (white cockatoos with a sulphur yellow crest!) are too big to get in to the feed. This is why we put the cage there. The cockatoos would, when they have finished eating, toss the dish off the feeder to the ground below. (We are on the first floor, not the ground floor in this pic, so they are banned from the feed dish!)
Every morning we would get between twenty and fifty of these lorrikeets but I always put out the same amount of diluted raw sugar - 1 litre - and four slices of white bread. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to disappear but the trees planted around the house include lots of native flowering varieties so they move on to those and get a more balanced diet. The sugar is only to draw them into the garden, the main feed is actually in the garden.
This morning I was racing around getting stuff ready for our monthly photo and video get -together. I have organised an email group of enthusiasts (and "boy" are they enthusiastic) who exchange both photos to set topics and make short videos so once a month those of us who live in this area gather to watch the videos that have been posted to us as well as videos made by local members. Anyway..... I was racing around getting ready for our day when I chanced to see a visitor on one of my roses. I dropped everything and raced upstairs to get the camera with one of my u-beaut new ND filters screwed in place and whereas once I would have reached for the spray can I nowadays reach for the Nikon or the Olympus!
Here is my visitor.....
Once I had my hopper's picture "in the can" I was once again free to race around and get things ready! I just hope he isn't going to grow to be a huge locust and gobble up all my plants. I forgot to squash it!
AJ