Sign of Autumn in the Sub-tropics

This morning when I should have been tucked up in bed I was delivering my tour driver son to where he was to pick up his coach for his next trip. There was a reward for me when we got there. Just as we turned in the drive I noticed the most gloriously coloured tree!

Naturally, I dug out my little camera and took a photo. Such a colourful sight is not seen too often among all our lush greenery!
I walked closer to admire the tree - such a perfect shape! - and just had to take a photo of the leaves beneath it. When I lived in the UK such a sight would barely make me look twice!

I can remember that as a child I would kick the fallen leaves, heap them up and jump into them and take great pleasure in throwing them up into the air! I think my son would have disowned me if I did that today!

Standing among the fallen leaves I gazed up into the tree, the morning sunlight was streaming through the leaves. It made me feel great to be alive on such a day!
As I walked back to the vehicle to drive home (leaving my son to drive off in the coach) I heard the distinctive call of black cockatoos. I looked up and saw three of them flying directly overhead, barely higher than the tree I had just left. I was looking into the sun so an in-flight shot was impossible. I continued walking up to the vehicle but could hear the birds still. I looked over the boundary of high bushes and saw them in the pencil willow trees in the next property. How I would have loved to have gone over there to get on the "other" side of the tree the birds were in. Knowing that the birds would fly away as soon as I came anywhere near I moved into a bit of shade and managed to take this shot.

The birds are chasing grubs that develop inside the heart of the willow and to get at these morsels they practically destroy the tree. The beaks on these birds are huge and so strong, they tear the soft flesh of the pencil willow and the branches then break and fall, you can hear the creaking sound as they go about there work!
I hope your morning was as eventful!
AJ

Is Spring on the way?

Winter has barely begun and yet today I saw a pair of swans busily preparing for a clutch of eggs! They were nest building.

The male swan was obviously the one in the water while his mate sat on the top of the heap and made things tidy.

The male would plunge his head deep in the water and pull up the weeds from the bottom and place them on the heap.

The female would remain where she was seated and spread the leaves and push them so they were tangled together and would stay together.

Since a moat had been cleared all around the nest the male swan had to move further and further away to find more weeds. Rather than swim back to the nest with each mouthful he would be like an excavator - pulling up the weeds from his right side, swinging his long neck around so that he could deposit them on his left side.

While he was working as hard as this his mate was getting rather bored so she curled her head back over her body and had a bit of a snooze. After all, unless the weeds were put onto the heap she had nothing to do!

I would have loved to have taken video of this nest building - I was using the 70-300mm lens at full stretch - but without a tripod no one would have the stomach to watch such a bouncy film! All these shots were taken hand held and for such an undertaking I upped the shutter speed and increased the ISO so that there would be plenty of light on this rather dull day. The ISO was 640 and my shutter speed was 1/500 second (for all the shots). Since Shutter Priority was chosen the camera took care of the Aperture.
A fast shutter speed is recommended when using the full zoom on a compact camera with a zoom such as 16x or 24x, such cameras do allow the user to select this. The faster shutter speed gives you much sharper images because you will not get motion blur (from your own hands shaking).
AJ

Creative sewing

Walking around the Textile Art expo I came across a group of women seated at sewing machines and receiving pieces of coloured lace and "tops" (dyed and coloured, teased wool)and provided with a plain coloured acrylic scarf they were to use these machines to create something colourful and special. I was able to use my little camera since the low surrounding baricade was close enough for everyone on the outside to see what was going on in this workshop.
None of the ladies had ever worked with one of these special "embossing" machines before but they soon knew exactly what to do and I did not see any one person actually plan what they were going to do or work out where they were going to lay their different colours and textures.

Enjoy.
Again, if you wish to see this video without the sides trimmed off just click on 'scarf making.flv" in the top left corner of the video and you will be taken to Youtube.
AJ

Unusual fashion

Went to Brisbane yesterday to the Textile Art Show and took a few photos.
I put them together to create this little video. There are certainly some talented and imaginative people in this country.

If you wish to see this video in Youtube - and slightly larger, click on the top lefthand corner on the words textiles.flv and you will be transferred to Youtube.
Enjoy
AJ

My tropical garden

After a very chilly start this day turned out to be a glorious sunny and warm one. I managed to get quite warm working in the garden, digging things out and moving them around then tossing mulch all around the new plantings. Nothing goes to waste in my garden, whatever I pull out gets put through the mulcher and is returned to the garden.
After an hour I had used up my energy for digging and mulching so cleaned up and grabbed the camera. I had noticed that the staghorn fern was looking rather magnificent.

 f6.3  1/10  ISO 200  18mm

 This wonderful plant needs no looking after at all, it is not a parasite, it does not send roots into the trunk of the tree it grows on, it is an "epiphyte" drawing moisture and nourishment from the air and rain that touches it. This particular plant was given to me when it was so small it would fit into the palm of my hand. For the first couple of years it was left on a piece of chip board to grow a bit - it came originally from the surface of a rock. Then it was put onto this tree and held there with a strap of plastic covered television aerial wire. The wire is still there holding it but the main leaf now hides it. Without the wire it may fall to the ground from its own weight.

 f6.3  1/15  ISO 200  20mm

The fence behind the tree gives some sort of scale to the Staghorn fern - that fence is two metres tall and is only a metre away from the tree that is supporting the Staghorn fern.
Many people make the mistake of calling this fern an Elkhorn fern. The Elkhorn fern is also an epiphyte but it does not have a magnificent large top leaf like the Staghorn fern. This is the Elkhorn.

 f6.3  1/6  ISO 200  30mm

It does look rather a mess but this is how the Elkhorn grows - it has lots of "pups" and they seem to crowd together. This one is on an African Tulip tree and it seems to really enjoy being here. Both these epiphytes love the deep shade so these heavily leafed trees provide the ideal situation for them - the Staghorn fern is on a Blackbean tree.
Sharing the same Blackbean as the Staghorn fern is a native orchid. This orchid is known as the King Orchid and has sprays of yellow flowers. Obviously it is not the time for the flowers just yet!

  f6.3  1/6  ISO 200  27mm

My garden is full of imported "exotic" plants but it is also home to many natives too. If it will grow in my garden I don't mind where it originated!
AJ

Pelican lunch

On Sunday I took my camera to one of the Northern suburbs of the Gold Coast and was fortunate enough to wander onto the sands as a flock of pelicans gathered on the water. The seagulls were massed around them so I thought that the people sitting on the sea wall were throwing their lunch out to them.

f/8    1/250  ISO200

Happily I started to take a few photos and barely had I started when the pelicans started to march up the beach, one behind the other.

The pelican march  up the beach was quickly realised, a man wearing a rubber apron and carrying two large buckets was setting himself up on the sea wall among the picnickers. The birds were about to be fed!

f/8    1/250  ISO200

The birds were very orderly and waited patiently for their turn to be given a fish carcase.

f/6.3    1/400  ISO200

Sometimes the birds would catch the fish and sometimes it would fall on to the sand only to be snatched up with its thick coating of sand grains to be taken to the water to be washed.

f/8    1/400  ISO200

This bird did catch his (her?) fish. How do you tell the sex of a pelican? Its just as well the birds know how!

Taking the fish down to the water. This fish has been caught before it hit the sand so will be swallowed as is , the fish that fall into the sand are given a dunking in the sea and then swallowed.

f/6.3    1/400  ISO200

Once the bird has had a fish it did not return for a second helping, so when the pelican took the fish into the water it would eat it, swim around for a little while and then swim over to the farther bank of sand before flying away.

f/6.3    1/320  ISO200

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my small collection of pelican activity. The movie uploading was a bit of an experiment. The movie taken with my Samsung (still camera) could be uploaded into my Picasa album from where I brought it into the blog. This is the video that just has the thin strip with the play button on it.
Video I took on the High Definition blog camera has been converted to flash video using AVS4YOU and loaded into Youtube before being embedded. The AVS converter I bought a couple of years back would not recognise the file format of the blog camera so I downloaded a newer version. I hope there are no intrusive adverts plastered all over it!
AJ

Back out with my camera!

I get "withdrawal symptoms" when I have been unable to write into my blogspot! I wake at night wondering what I should write about, I drop the housework and take out the camera and gaze longingly at the different lenses before putting them back and "getting on with things again" and I scour the free papers and the 'net for local event that might be worth "dropping everything" for. Then the weekend comes around - and family takes precedence! (I can't resist the invitation to have the children!). However, today I insisted on taking the Nikon with me when we went out looking at bedroom furniture and once that was out of the way it was MY turn!
I wont tell you about all the day because that would take too long. My blog today includes a few photos taken on the way back home.
Our photography group has three monthly topics, one of the topics for this month is "pink" and I spotted a tall pink building so pulled over into a car park that was almost opposite to take my shot. Once that was done (Its a magnificent building, incidentally!) my attention was taken to my immediate surrounds.
The car was parked right beside the most incredible plant pot I have ever seen. It has peacock eyes on it.

This I would like at home! However it was almost as big as the car so not something I could take!
Colin and I decided (I decided and he agreed) to take a walk into the park beside the car park we had chosen. A friend has shown photos taken inside this park of the most flamboyant of exotic birds - peacocks - so I imagine that these birds have been resident in this park for a while because the fence was the next thing I just HAD to take a picture of!

What a wonderful piece of artwork this fence is! Each panel flows over into the next. I was very restrained and only took the one photograph of this part of the fence - it straddled the footpath entry to the park. We walked though and were amazed at how beautiful the park was and right in the centre of our tourist city of Surfers Paradise and, when the big race is on, is surrounded by roaring V8 cars as they vie for the trophy at our annual car race (Once called "Indy"). The race track (normally busy streets used by everyone) runs all the way around the perimetre of the park and several residences and high-rises. 
While we were walking we heard the sound of music - I love music and it was such a magnet! We came across a brass band all smartly in uniform and under the baton of a conductor, playing very pleasant music of all genres. We gave a hearty round of applause when the first tune finished and that encouraged several other walkers to applaud too so the conductor asked us where we came from and happily launched the band into another rousing number. I struck up a conversation with a fellow who was sitting watching and learned that the Surfers Paradise Brass Band were now going to play every first Sunday in the month in this park. They used to perform in a hall but they never had much of an audience - the acoustics under the trees are perfect for brass and the sound carries quite a long way. I am sure they will be very popular - they are very good.

The drummer looks to be only a teenager. He was excellent.
Colin and I did not find any living peacocks during our time in the park but on the return walk to the car found yet another patch of decorated fence.

As for previous blog entries, if you wish to see the pictures larger, click on them. Hit the return arrow to get back to the blog - if you close the picture by clicking on the X, you close the blog!
I have had my "blog fix" so am feeling better now!
AJ