Today I made a point of taking a broader view photo of the mountain, showing the nearby palm trees. In yesterday’s post, I explained that we had lost a few lower leaves on our palms during the recent gusty storms. One significant leaf, which usually appears in my Mount Warning photos, is gone. Now when I take phtos of the mountain from this particular position in the garden, it feels like the photo isn’t complete – now I have to get used to a new normal!

The broad view photo adds context to the height of the palms, and why one very large drooping leaf always appeared in my camera lens. There is a bunch of seeds below the leaves on one palm, and the leaf that always appeared as an “extra” prop in my photos was growing between the leaves and the seed bunch.

This next photo shows a different cluster of palm trees. Most of these trees – except for the one on the far left of the photo – are growing near the pool. As the lower leaves drop, new leaves are forming above, and adding height to the tree. Along the trunk of the tree, as each leaf drops it leaves a ridge in the trunk of the palm where the leaf once grew.

Surprisingly, palm leaves are incredibly heavy! When they crash to the ground they make a very loud sound, almost like thunder. The palm on the far left in the photo above has two leaves which could fall at any time. As the trees grow taller and the dying leaves are higher, we simply can’t reach them to cut the leaves down, so until they drop they look a tad messy dangling from the tree.

Every morning around sunrise, the kookaburras wait in the palm trees, keeping a watchful eye on the back door, waiting for me to go out and feed them. They rarely wait around the garden at night, probably because they know I won’t feed them. Tonight, however, I spotted one kookaburra sitting on my clothesline, watching the back door. What really struck me was the position of the bird in front of a gorgeous orange sunset.

I rushed outside with my camera and took a few photos, and seeing as the kookie had been such a willing model, I made an exception and took a tiny treat out to him. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked best – the black silhouette, or the one that shows a glimpse of his features. So here are both photos. 🙂