Month: November 2020

Australia · clouds · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · palm trees · photography · spring · sunset · Tweed Valley

On Palms and Kookaburras

Joanne13 Comments

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. 🙂

Australia · clouds · gardening · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · palm trees · photography · spring · Tweed Valley

A Day That Sparkled

Joanne11 Comments

About a week ago we had a couple of days when storms and blustering winds hit us each afternoon. We even lost power Saturday before last. During the chaotic weather, our palm trees took a bit of a battering, and since then we have lost a few of the lower leaves. Where once I had palm leaves dancing in the foreground as I took photos of the mountain, now all I have are tall, bare palm trunks. The leaves are still growing in the lofty heights of the tree, they just don’t appear in my photos any more.

So today, the first photo I took of the mountain features a cluster of palm trees, just for something different.

There was some rain about this morning, not much, but just enough to make the valley sparkle. Some days, rain can have the opposite effect, making the valley appear dull and lifeless under a veil of grey mist. Today, the valley looked magnificent.

I had the usual morning crew here for breakfast, and if kookaburras are not photogenic enough, the light of the day added extra pizzazz to their appearance.

Here they are, getting stuck into some beef pieces for breakfast. They always dominate the feeding table, even though I assure them there is plenty of food for everyone.

Little baby magpie has become a regular visitor every morning too. He/she usually visits with both his/her parents now, but I’ve noticed the father usually feeds baby.

Later this afternoon, I went for a walk down the back to admire everything we achieved during the weekend in the garden. After putting the cut branches of our fruit trees through the hired mulching machine, we have several large piles of mulch which will come in very handy around the garden.

I took my iPhone with me down the back, and just for fun I thought I’d take a photo of the valley from our rear boundary, just to see if the quality of the camera is okay. I rarely think to take photos with my phone camera, so it was an experiment for me. This is the result –

Between the fantastic light of the day, and the magnificent cloud formations, it was probably a safe bet that the photo wouldn’t look too bad. 🙂

Australia · clouds · gardening · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · pecan tree · spring · Tweed Valley

A day spent in the garden

Joanne9 Comments

It was another dull weather day today, which worked out perfectly for getting some gardening done. It wasn’t hot, so I didn’t break out in a sweat while hauling branches of fruit frees, that we have pruned over the last month or so, to the mulcher husband hired for the weekend.

We haven’t pruned the pecan tree, which had bare branches for most of the winter, but now spring has arrived the leaves look green and lucious. Around the pecan tree there is the constant buzzing of bees, as they are congregating daily around the pecan tree doing their bee thing with the flowers. Pecan flowers fascinate me every year. Who would think these long strips of greenery would eventually turn into hard, round, brown, pecan nuts?

Just as we were about to head indoors late this afternoon, we caught sight of a foraging kookaburra. They usually watch us from tree branches while we are gardening, and as soon as we leave the area where we have been working they swoop down to find bugs to eat in the loose soil.

I’m dreadfully tired tonight, so I will say goodnight and head off to bed now. Tomorrow we intend spending another full day in the garden while we have the use of the hired mulching machine. It’s a fantastic machine and does a great job of chopping up thick tree branches, so I guess it’s best described as tiring, but satisfying work, which is the way I feel about most gardening chores. 🙂

Australia · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · spring · Tweed Valley

Spring-like weather returns

Joanne17 Comments

Today the weather, and the appearance of the valley, is completely different to yesterday.

This morning started out fine and sunny, with the ranges and mountain looking crystal clear, as if washed clean by yesterday’s sudden heavy shower of rain. I would have taken photos early, after the sun had risen and cleared the night-haze from the valley if I had time, but I had plans to meet my daughter at the shops. We had to have an early start as she needed to take baby Eli home by midday in time for his nap.

By the time I arrived home, the haze had set in again, although we didn’t reach the same high temperatures as yesterday. Later, I watched out for another beautiful sunset, but unfortunately Mother Nature must have been resting tonight. So today’s view over the valley is more subdued than yesterday.

The baby magpie visited again this morning with his/her parents for breakfast. It’s such a skinny, long-legged bird, and the sweetest little thing. ❤

A kookaburra made itself comfortable on the fence this morning and stayed there for quite a while. It seemed to have its feathers fluffed up, and looked so content that after a while I took some meat out to it, even though I had already fed the usual crowd. Usually when a kookaburra is looking for food, they wait in the palm trees and not on the fence so close to the house as this one was. It flew away as soon as I went outside, which was out of character as well. I know that kookaburras are territorial, so I wondered if perhaps this is a bird from another territory. If only birds could talk, it perhaps could have told me!