The old Moon with the New Moon in her arms. (Friday Skys)

I’ve been thinking about the Moon over the last few days – in fact the next post on my other blog is about the Moon and the lack of darkness (it should be posted by the weekend if you are interested)
It’s not really the best time to try and do anything to do with the Moon, given that we are very close to a New Moon.
Anyway – here are two pictures I have taken in the last couple of weeks. The second of the two images shows “The old Moon with the New Moon in her arms”.

The bright crescent is illuminated by sunlight, but the pale disc in the crescent arms is illuminated by light bouncing back from the Earth. I rather like seeing this, even if the image is not really a prize winner

You can find more images of the sky here at Skywatch Friday

World Bird Wednesday - King Parrot.

Go on, just one more parrot, please Stewart!

OK, OK, but promise you'll go to sleep after I show you one more parrot!

Yes Stewart, we promise!

Well here are some King Parrots. You can find them in the hills behind Melbourne. They used to be common in some of the towns that were burnt to the ground in the Black Saturday fires - so although they are genuinely splendid birds, they do carry some ghosts.














































You can find heaps more splendid birds here at World Bird Wednesday.




You can also see the most recent post on my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention button on the RHS of this page.

My World Tuesday - Between the showers

It was a wet and windy weekend. I dodged showers, ferried kids from place to place and generally did all those dad type of things that keep you from taking photographs!

Late on Sunday afternoon the larger of my small people was bursting out of his skin, and seemed likely to explode. So we went for a walk. As we stepped out of the door it started raining! But the clouds were being pushed through by a cold wind and every now and then the sun came out.

I found two things that I wanted to photograph. The first was a plant pushing through a fence out into the day light, and the second was the end of a house where the light was playing over the roof line, with a dark sky behind. I thought that both were about architecture - one natural the other human.




You can find lots of other good things to see here or by clicking on the My World Tuesday button on the RHS of the screen.


You can also see my most recent post on my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention button on the RHS of the screen.

Another woodcutting sky. (Friday Skies)

Arrived home from work yesterday and found these pink clouds settling down for the night - and very nice they were too.



After a refreshing cup of tea I plunged into the garden to battle with the woodpile - its full of spiders and other beasts, so twilight wood chopping is always a test of one nerves! Anyway, as I was wielding the splitter - a fearsome combination of axe and sledgehammer - I noticed a second set of colours in the sky. I abandoned the splitter for the camera.

The clouds seemed to be shape shifting and changing colour - I think that the last of the sun was being filtered through more than one layer of cloud so the light kept changing. The light show was brief - but long enough to make me realise the splitting wood in the dark is less than no fun!


Hope you like the skies. You can find more skies from around the planet here at SkyWatch Friday.

You can also see the most recent post on my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention button on the RHS of the screen.

World Bird Wednesday - Rainbow Lorikeet.

I think I may be playing to the audience here – but I can’t resist some more parrots. I found this Rainbow Lorikeet crawling out of a log next as I was walking around our local lake. It perched low down to the ground for a few minutes and then it was off. Although I checked a few times over the next week, I never saw it again. Maybe it wanted a something a little further off the ground!

As you can see, they are excessively bright, but you can’t tell how noisy they can be when you have a flock of them in a tree. What is really surprising is how hard they can be to pick up with the naked eye when they are in the canopy.
Anyway, this may be the last of the parrots for a while, unless of course I find some more!

You can find heaps more splendid birds here at World Bird Wednesday.

You can also see the most recent post on my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention button on the RHS of this page.

Enjoy the birds.

My World Tuesday - I thought it was winter!

It's cold tonight - it really is. There is snow up in the mountains. The branches of some of our garden trees are tapping on the window, asking to come in from the cold. And what do I find?

I find those classic winter animals the Praying Mantis and a Southern Marbled Gecko. The Mantis was outside my front door, laying eggs on the brick work and the Gecko was hiding under a bag next the hall stand. I dont think these things should be happening. It's not the proper time! But here they are, in all their close up glory.

I hope the wildlife in your part of the world is paying proper attention to the seasons and not doing things that are strange and, frankly, untimely.

You can find lots of other good things to see here or by clicking on the My World Tuesday button on the RHS of the screen.

You can also see my most recent post on my other blog (which I have to say is a much better read than this one!) by clicking the Paying Ready Attention button on the RHS of the screen.

A volcanic ash sky? (Friday Skies)

There have been some issues for air travel this week in the SE of Australia caused by ash blowing into its airspace from a Chilean volcano - small world anybody?


It may be a bit of a long shot but I cant help but wonder if the colour in this picture may be related to this. It was taken about 10 minutes after the pictures of the parrots I put up for my last post here. Anyway, whatever the cause I happen to like the picture!


You can find more Friday Skies here and the most recent post from my other blog by clicking the “Paying Ready Attention” link on the RHS of the screen.

World Bird Wednesday - Red-Rumped Parrot.

More parrots this week. Was playing with the kids this weekend when I noticed a flock of parrots on the oval - that's a sports ground for those of you not fully conversant with Australian jargon!

These parrots are common on sports fields, golf courses and other patches of grass - so its no surprise that their other name is Grass Parrot. You can see the males red-rump in the front of this picture. The greyish bird in the background is the female.

You can find more world birds here, and you can see the latest post on my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention link on the RHS of the page.

Enjoy the birds.

My World Tuesday - Next door's chimney.

We had some interesting evening light here this week. The clouds did not really do their job, but the 1920's brick work of the local houses picked up the light and turned, well, brick red.

What actually caught my attention was the colour combination. It was very reminiscent of the red dirt / blue sky combination you can get in central and northern Australia. So, here it was, a little bit of the outback in suburbia.

You can find more images of great places here or you can click on the My World Tuesday link on the RHS of the screen. You can also see at my most recent posts on my other blog by clicking on the "Paying Ready Attention" Link on the RHS of the screen.

Large Black Beetle (Macro Monday)

These pictures don't really fit the bill for some of my other projects - so I'll post them to Macro-Monday and see what happens.











This rather magnificent beast was walking along a path in Tasmania when I found it. Its some form of wood boring beetle as far as I can tell, but much else beyond that is beyond me! If you look closely at the pictures you can see that the beetle has a mite infection. I only noticed this when I looked at the iamges on the computer.

You can find the post in which these pictures origainlly appeared here. You can find more marco photgraphs at Macro Monday.

Kite Skies (Friday Skies)

Its winter here. The ski season starts this weekend. Its cold. I have a cold. I've been forced to take refuge by the fire with a glass of a fine Scottish product.

However, here is a little dose of Australian sunshine from the archives.

You can find more Friday Skies here and the most recent post from my other blog by clicking the “Paying Ready Attention” link on the RHS of the screen.

World Bird Wednesday - Crimson Rosella

Thought I’d go with a splash of colour this week – and they don’t come much more colourful than the Crimson Rosella. The brightly coloured chap is the male and the other one is a juvenile, coming into full male plumage.

Had a couple of these in the garden this weekend, so I thought I’d dig out some pictures.
I have to say I have a fondness for LBJ’s – in this case “Large, Bright, Jobs” – so much easier to see!

You can find more world birds here, and you can see the latest post on my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention link on the RHS of the page.

Enjoy the birds.

My World Tuesday - Two Clocks.

Paid a visit to Scienceworks this weekend - its Melbourne Science Museum, and a bit a regular trip of me and the kids - geeks, one and all and proud of it! There was a new dinosaur exhibition, which was good, but not great.

As we were having lunch I noticed these two clocks. A lot of posts (and many of my comments) have focused on the changing of the seasons, and with it the turning of the Earth and its journey around the sun. I've also had a few tight deadlines at work.


So here it was, a clock for the seasons (or at least part of one) and a clock for the working day. The tick tock clock use to sit upon a water tower in central Melbourne. I cant help but think that its removal from that public location and most peoples failure to connect with the turning of the year are linked so how. We carry the time on our wrist (on on our phone) to count every second, but we often miss the longer times of day and season. Strange.


Anyway - here are the pictures.






You can find more images of great places here or you can click on the My World Tuesday link on the RHS of the screen. You can also see at my most recent posts on my other blog by clicking on the "Paying Ready Attention" Link on the RHS of the screen.

Up into the Skies (Friday Skies)

One last shot from my few days in Brisbane. Was thinking about sky shots and saw the crane - which I thought was a good link. Its what we use when we want to lift things into the sky - so I thought that was a nice link. As I was setting up the shot in flies a plane - another way we get things into the sky. As the plane was way above the thin window of light that was illuminating the crane it looks black, a nice contrast to the colours of the crane.

So here you have it - two ways to get to the sky, under a sky that could never be really reached.

You can find more Friday Skies here and the most recent post from my other blog by clicking the “Paying Ready Attention” link on the RHS of the screen.