Our World Tuesday - Remarkable Rocks

They really did have their “let’s give these places sensible names” hat on when these remarkable rocks were named.  They are called Remarkable Rocks.  If only everything was as straight forward as this!

They are on the western end of Kangaroo Island and are one of the islands most well known attractions.  These rocks have been blasted by wind, rain, salt and summer heat for 500 million years.  That’s a long time by anybodies standards.  Now busloads of tourists (and me) add the erosion of feet to the process.

I’d love to be there when I did not have to dodge and weave around the crowds, and I’m sure the crowds thought the same about me.

What is not apparent in these pictures is just how windy it was.  A significant storm system was moving up the coast and this was one of the more exposed sections.  At times it was hard to stand up, let alone think about composition or exposure. (Well I was thinking about exposure – but of the hypothermia type!)

You can find more pictures from around the world at Our World Tuesday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the pictures.

Macro Monday - Heath Goanna

The roadsides of Kangaroo Island are rather heavily littered with road kill – wallabies, possums and kangaroos.  This supply of often less than fresh meat is highly valued by Heath Goannas.  These are one metre plus lizard of the same basic form as the Komodo Dragon. 

This individual was pulling out the intestines of a well dead wallaby.  As you can see form the images this was not a subtle operation.

You can find a full account of my encounter with this roadside horror here on my wordy blog.

You can find more marco shots at Macro Monday.

Enjoy the close ups.

SkyWatch Friday - While the kettle boils

At present my kids still get up early – and before all you parents of teenagers tell me it’s not going to last – and I try to make a virtue of necessity.  The house on Kangaroo Island had a stove top kettle complete with steam whistle.  So as the water was heating for that first, all important, cup of tea of the day I wandered outside to have a bit of a look.

As you can see it was worth it.

These have to be some of the best morning skies I have seen in a very long time.  The sky was just ablaze.

If you are interested, you can find the first of my “wordy” posts about Kangaroo Island here on my other blog.

You can find more skies from around the world at SkyWatch Friday.

Enjoy the skies (and hopefully my other blog as well!)

World Bird Wednesday - Pelican (s)

You were never very far from a Pelican on Kangaroo Island – or more precisely, never far from an Australian Pelican - Pelecanus conspicillatus.  Interestingly, the second part of this name does not mean ‘conspicuous’ (which they were!), but ‘spectacled’.  This seems to refer to the bare skin around the eyes of these huge birds.

One evening (in light rain and appalling light) I watched these birds trying to roost on long topped street lamps.  There was much squawking and squabbling, and not a small amount of falling off as well. 

In the end I stopping taking pictures – I could tell they would be not much chop – and sat back and watched. 

Anthropomorphism be dammed, they were funny and looked like slightly drunk teenagers arguing about the best seat at the bar.  

You can find more birds from around the world at the sensibly named World Bird Wednesday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the page.

Enjoy the birds.

Our World Tuesday - Beach

Kingscote Bay

Too much going on this week!  Birthdays stuff, work stuff, family stuff – it’s not all good stuff, but things just have a habit of happening together.

American River

  

I had to learn to love the beach when I arrived in Australia – and it’s still a work in a progress.  But here are a few examples from Kangaroo Island showing why the beach is slowly winning.

Emu Bay

So, if you are having a week like mine, I hope these pictures will bring down the blood pressure and reduce the temptation to pour yourself just one more glass of wine.

You can find more pictures from around the world at Our World Tuesday.

Pennishaw Bay

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen (although you may want to wait unit Wednesday!)

Enjoy the pictures.

Macro Monday - Kelly Hills Cave

Kelly Hill caves on Kangaroo Island are a remarkable place to visit.  They have formed within solidified sand dune systems rather than from the more typical marine limestone.   The caves are heavily ‘decorated’ – that is they have lots of stalagmites, stalactites and curtain formations.

Marco work in dull light is never that easy, but I like the light effects on the close up of the section of stalagmite.  The red colour comes from minerals dissolved in the water, or possible plant materials.

As with most “show cave” a few features have names – and this is called “The Ballet Slipper”.  Its the end of a stalactites, and it really does look like its name – which is not always the case.

You can find more close up shots at Marco Monday.

SkyWatch Friday - Moon Halo

For better or worse I dragged myself into work today – time and deadlines wait for no man!

Another Kangaroo Island shot – maybe I should get some form of commission from their Tourist Board!

This is a Moon Halo.  It’s caused by light being refracted through six-sided crystals of ice floating in the upper atmosphere.  Because the ice crystals are the same size and shape you end up with a regular pattern being perceived – in this case a circle.

I think of it as the same way as I think about rainbows – a splendid thing to see and no less splendid for knowing how its formed.  Unweaving a rainbow – or in this case, unpacking a halo -  never reduces its beauty.

You can find more sky shots from around the world at SkyWatch Friday.

Enjoy the Skies.

World Bird Wednesday - Little Corella

We happened upon the large flock of Little Corella at Kingscote on Kangaroo Island.  They were a bit flighty, and had already been spooked by another photographer (if I sound bitter here, that’s because I was!)

Corellas are small white cockatoos – just under 40 cm in length and they have a little crest that sticks up whenever they need to have a crest that sticks up!

Anyway, when it became clear I was not going to get any ‘on the ground’ shots I pulled back and tried to catch the movement  - and shear noise if that had been possible  – of the birds in flight.

So, this is not like the stuff I put up most weeks, but I rather like it.

You can find more bird pictures at World Bird Wednesday.

Enjoy the birds.

Our World Tuesday - Little Sahara

Still locked in a battle with the virus – although I think I may be gaining the upper hand – thankfully!

On our recent trip to Kangaroo Island we went to an area known as Little Sahara.  It does not take much imagination to work out this is an area of tall sand-dunes.  One of the most popular things to do is to slide down the dunes on ‘sand boards’.  

Not my normal type of thing, but it was a bit of a blast – although the kids got a bit feed up with getting mouthfuls of sand as they face-planted off the board!

I would have loved to have stayed on until the evening – but photography and parenting do not always go hand in hand!

You can find more pictures from around the world at Our World Tuesday.

Enjoy the pictures.

Macro Monday - Soldier Crabs

I have been attacked by a rather ugly virus – biological rather than computer – so I have not been doing much other then sleeping and breaking out into bursts of sweating and shivering!  Normal service will be resumed when my immune systems gets its act together and beats up on the aforementioned virus.

These are some soldier crabs from Magnetic Island – they were good fun to watch as they marched about the sand!

You can find more macro pictures at Macro Monday.

Enjoy the close ups.

SkyWatch Friday - Kangaroo Moons

Our week away on Kangaroo Island coincided with the week of the full Moon.  This, and so persistent thin cloud frustrated my attempts to photograph some star trails. 

Most of my efforts were washed out with all the light from the Moon bouncing off the clouds.  But I did manage to get a few shots that worked – and with a bit of a contrast tweak in a well know photo-editing program the result is not too bad.

The landscape shot was a result of there being so much light about.  After failing on my first efforts at star trails, I reduced the exposure down to 2 minutes, just to see what happened.  And out popped this image!  In case you have not worked it out – that’s an image taken only with Moonlight.  You can see the star trails in the sky – this is definitely one to have a look at in a bigger format.

The final two shots are moonscapes – pure and simple.

You can find more sky shots at SkyWatch Friday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the skies!

World Bird Wednesday - Ruddy Turnstone.

On the last full day of our recent trip to Kangaroo Island we paid a visit to a wonderful little beach called Emu Bay.  We had last been there almost 10 years ago to the week – so it was nice to go back.  There were a good number of fisherfolk on the beach, and as a result I was surprised when a group of waders shot off from the shoreline.

It was a flock of about 20 – 25 Ruddy Turnstones.  One of that flock was clearly braver than the others and hung around a bit.  The light was less than great by this time and the bird was running about a lot, so I’m pleased with these shots.

It was a very nice way to end a great week away.

You can find more birds from around the world at World Bird Wednesday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the birds.

Our World Tuesday - Pennington Bay, Kangaroo Island

Still getting organised after our trip to Kangaroo Island in South Australia.  These two pictures are taken from very similar locations – the first is looking back towards the house we rented and the second is looking along Pennington Bay.

As you can see both the location of the house and the bay itself are splendid.  We could watch dolphins from the deck of the house – and I even saw them when I was sat on the bed! At the house there was no mains electricity, water or sewage.  There was no TV reception, no internet and no useable mobile phone reception.  What a great place!  

You can find more great places from around the world at Our World Tuesday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the pictures.

Macro Monday - Hare's Tails

I’ve just come back from a week away – pictures to follow.

This is one of my favourite pictures from the past couple of years.  This type of grass is called Hare’s Tails.  It not a native grass, but I rather like it.

So, while I sort through the dozens of pictures I took last week, forgive a little bit of archive mining.

You can find more macro images at Macro Monday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the close ups.

A post on Friday.

This is a picture of the back end of the boat we took this week.  I'm sailing off to a house which is well off the grid.  So, just  a quick picture for Friday just to keep my blog organised!

SM

World Bird Wednesday - Purple Swamp Hen

During a trip to one of my local ponds (its the one shown yesterday) I found these Purple Swamp Hens crashing about in the reed beds.  They are rather big, often very cross and they tend to throw their weight about a bit.  But I still like them!

You can find more birds from around the world at World Bird Wednesday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

 

Enjoy the birds.

Our World Tuesday - Wetland Curves

Short and to the point today! (Which is rare for me!)

This wetland is just down the hill from my kids school. I like the curves of the water, the stream and the boardwalk. Not much else to say really, so I’ll stop!

Hope you like it as well.
You can find more (and possibly more scenic) pictures from around the world at Our World Tuesday.


You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the page.

Enjoy the pictures.

Macro Monday - Micro Landscape

Not sure if this counts as a ‘real’ macro shot or no – so I’ll leave it to the wisdom of the crowd to answer that question.

Many of us try to take the ‘big landscape’ style of picture – with varying degrees of success. But I think we can over look the detail closer to our feet. I know that can be the case for me. This is a shot of a local reed bed – taken looking down into it from a flight of stairs. I really like its abstract structure. I had a feeling of calligraphy in mind when I made the picture. What do you think?

You can find more macro shots at Macro Monday.

You can find the latest post to my other blog by clicking on the Paying Ready Attention image on the RHS of the screen.

Enjoy the close ups!