Bees and others in MtLawleyShire

and mostly in MtLawleyShire’s garden, but not entirely.

My lavender is usually filled with bees., but one morning, I had the most awesome visitor – a grasshopper.  He was huge!

he shifted and I was able to get more detailed photos of him:

 

Portraits:

 

a more normal visitor: bee 🙂

 

 

 

this little hoverfly is a very common visitor, but soooo difficult to catch in a photo, so these are very lucky shots:

 

On a verge garden just down the road from me, there are all sorts of flowers and many attract bees:

 

on this particular day, in the french lavender that flowers there, the bees were busy:

 

but then (& apologies for the photo but everything is so tiny & so fast…) – a NATIVE blue-banded bee and a European bee in the same space:

I followed this native bee – they don’t stop as do the European bees – the hover, flit, pause, zag, flit, zig, pause, dive, flit…you get the idea.  But I got these:

 

peekaboo:

& these of it flitting:

 

and back in my garden, shortly before her take off to the ground & cuddles – the prettiest flying thing (well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit) entangled in early morning sunshine:

 

 

 

Spring in MtLawleyShire

It was a very Spring-like day today.  Rain tomorrow and early next week, then Spring will hit with temperatures moving to the high twenties.  Today, though, was pretty and pleasant, warm and quiet and filled with colour.  No hint of the terrible summer to come.

And a touch of magic: a fairy door found close to where I live, at the base of a Moreton Bay fig tree shading a street corner.

the area was filled with bird song and the magic of colour:

jonquils and pelargoniums:

 

tiny daisies and the pink variety of buttercup:

 

the lupins have bloomed all over the empty block:

 

not sure what this is with its perfume filling the area, but here are buds and flowers both:

 

flowers of a broad bladed grass plant:

 

an ornamental freesia and an early rose:

 

poppies:

 

the rich hues of an exotic hibiscus squeezing out through a fence:

grass heads catching the last of the light:

 

     

and a cat caught in almost sunset, watching me:

 

Rain in MtLawleyShire

It’s the last day of Winter, by the calendar at least, as Spring has been here for a couple of weeks or more.  But it is a suitably wintry day with rain and wind and gloom, though at the moment it’s sunny.

But when it rains, I love to go out with the camera and see what I can catch.  It was too windy to be really successful, but I caught a few amidst the rain and gloom.  I love it when I actually get the rain:

amidst the wind, there were moments of stillness where I caught raindrops on jasmine leaves:

 

on hanging remains of spider plant fronds:

 

on leaves of dead spider plant fronds and the ends of jasmine twigs:

 

on the loops limbs of jasmine branches:

on the thin fronds of tiger trees:

on the petals of a nasturtium and amongst clumps of unbowed freesia:

 

& then the sun came out:

Bees in MtLawleyShire

I do love bees.  Who doesn’t?  They help all the flowers, all the fruits, all the yummy things in life.  And they make honey.  The ones here are all the European bees.  I have seen our native bees which have blue bands, and seen them in my garden as well, but have as yet to catch one with the camera.

so – here are bees on native flowers, Grevillea and bottlebrush type flowers:

 

 

 

on other flowers:

 

 

 

on borage:

 

on a daisy:

 

and finally – in my garden, on the lavender:

 

 

I do love it when I get their little faces:

MtLawleyShire’s zygocactus

It is that time of year – when my zygocactus flowers.  I just love these flowers – their outrageous colour, their intricate form, and the way they hang on the delicate fronds.  Look at they sideways & they fall off.

Let me share some pictures with you:

Buds

 

 

 

after heavy rain that overflowed the gutters & flooded the courtyard – & everything in it.  It must’ve been very heavy for the zygocactus to get wet, but I am not sorry.  It did no damage & just added to their beauty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

& then the flowers, looking as though they dance or dive, in sunlight & shadow:

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are incredibly lovely, these flowers, coming from an almost ugly plant.

After this flowering, I will repot it and hopefully, next year, wherever I am, it will have even more flowers.

I hope you enjoyed this brief post 🙂

 

a suburban memorium

I love the Singing Honeyeaters, and for a couple of years now, they have been visiting my little courtyard.  Last year, one couple nested.  This year, there were 2 couples.  One on the left side – in the ivy growing over the carport, and one on the right, in the untidy hedge over my neighbour’s pergola roof.

They have become accustomed to me, and I am sure the adults have swooped my fluffy friend as she tends to slink away when they’re around.

Over the last week, I had seen the adults with young ones in the spindly, vigourous potted trees on the right side of my little courtyard, and it was wonderful watching the adults swoop and hover, catching insects which they ferried to the peeping younglings.

On the other side, the youngling finally came out – and sat on the fence along the carport while the adults did the food thing. I watched for ages, coming out with the camera and going back in.  I was worried
cause the adults seemed to leave the wee one alone a lot.  But, although it seemed tempted by low flying insects, when i made a noise, it flew up out of reach.  OUt of reach of me – & the fluffy cat who seemed not the slightest interested.

I had to go teaching in the evening and when I came home, I found feathers in the study.

I knew – it was the wee fledging.

I haven’t seen it today, so yes, it is gone.

I cannot hate my cat.  She didn’t get many cuddles until I went to bed last night.  I am thinking of dissuading the honeyeaters from nesting here next year.

Today. there have been adults, and I have heard the peeping of young honeyeaters from the other side, but nothing where this little one had sat, peeping quietly and waiting.

So – all these photos.

In memorium.

a little life-filled fluffy feathered thing that is no more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye, little one.

 

 

Still here in mtlawleyshire – some flowers & the moon

Oh my friends – I have missed you.  I have been so disciplined and have looked at your posts so quickly, and have not left messages on so many.

I am so sorry.

But after a few more months, I will have time to go back and go through them – which is always fun 🙂  And something best done when there si time to savour and comment.

So please forgive me.  You are not forgotten.

And now, I have so many photos to post!  Oh my goodness!.

I thought I would start with just these: shots of flowers I took as I walked down to Beaufort street – & the moon.  She was up early, and it took some doing but I managed to get this.  Not bad, I thought, with my little camera.

Now there are just all these flowers.

Roses:

 

 

 

Zygocactus.  They are finished now and the plants have returned to being odd, ugly straggly things of the shadows and dust and spiderwebs, but they were glorious in flower.  The red ones belong to someone’s garden I pass on my walk, the pink the last of mine.

 

 

 

a smattering of eucalypt blossom:

 

There was a whole tree of the red, but I couldn’t get a decent angle

and in my garden, a different type of flower – larger than dinner plates!

 

More coming 🙂 Including trees! Hyde Park.  Sunsets and storm clouds with some rainbows.  And probably my fattee cattee!

Keira

Studying in MtLawleyShire

Dear fellow photo bloggers, traveller, writers of warmth and poetry,

I am taking a break for a little while, to concentrate on my PhD – which needs to be done!

I will not stop taking photos, but it takes so long to prepare & post, and I will not have the time to respond to all of your posts either, much as this pains me.

So if you do not hear from me for a while, I am not gone & you are not forgotten – so please don’t forget me.  I will post every now & then 🙂

And this morning, I took more photos of the ugly succulent with the lovely pink flowers that heralds winter – & it has been cold!  It is warming up again, but not last night, the night before – we had the coldest May night in 98 years!

I love the cold nights.  Sadly, this week, the night temperatures are going back up above 10 again, but I am hoping for more cold….

 

 

 

 

Keira xx

Only once a year in my garden

This plant only flowers briefly once a year – and here it is: the first full flower

 

The light at this time in the morning is lovely & I tried to capture it on the petals

 

It floats against the giant fronds of the tree fern

And there are more flowers coming:

 

Work and a sore foot

Due to work pressures and a sore foot, there was no walking today.  This will happen more and more.  My PhD is demanding work and  have some very serious deadlines coming.  I hope you don’t forget me if I don’t get to post as often.

Today I took some pics in the garden.  They’re not spectacular.  It’s Autumn, despite the warmth, so there aren’t many flowers and my little garden is looking distinctly untidy.

But there are some flowers.  A large begonia has some bells, pale pink and subtle, they are pretty,but difficult to photograph:

   

Some herbs are flowering – red basil and the rosemary, but not many flowers – only one spike on the basil and about 5 on the rosemary:

 

one tiny pot of everlastings are still flowering, and a self seeded flower is growing in an unemptied but otherwise untenanted pot (obviously, this flower has become the tenant!):

 

some jasmine is flowering both over the pergola and amongst the ivy flowering over the back fence (the ivy is very untidy so no photograph):

 

and then there’s the untidy, usually ugly hedge between my place and the unit next door.  This is the only time of year it looks OK, mostly it is rather ugly, full of dead growth and it’s very invasive, especially over areas where I hang my washing!  But its yellow flowers are surprisingly pretty and I have a suspicion that a pair of singing honeyeaters nest there:

 

This is one of the areas of massed green in my little courtyard – lavender and dogsbane:

and I love the shape of rue leaves:

 

And of course she was in the garden – the sweetest flower of all:

Then evening came, with the beauty of the evening star above the lingering sunset:

and that is all.  No trees 😦

maybe tomorrow…..if I do enough work today.

Keira