Trying to upload photos

I can't wait for Wildlife Wednesday to show you ....

.... or at least I couldn't. But Blogger has other ideas - " patience is a virtue" the little man inside the machine is saying (only a man would behave this way!) as he happily agrees to upload my images and then EATS THEM!

The reason for my excitement, I hear you ask with bated breath - it is the ECHIDNA! - the one that all my neighbours have seen but which constantly eludes me.

Today, as I was playing computer potato, lounging around, getting my virtual exercise by surfing the net, I kept hearing something moving in the bush outside. Usually the noises are made by blue-tongued lizards or skinks, but after listening for a while it became clear that this noise belonged to something else. It wasn't a snake (I can recognise that sound at 50 paces); it was too heavy, slow and deliberate for a skink; yet it seemed to be too active for a blue-tongue. It was too early in the day to be a possum. The only thing I could come up with was a goanna - and I haven't seen a goanna around here for at least thirty years. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me - I looked out the window to see the ECHIDNA!, right below me. In the time it took to call Grandpa Flea, grab the camera and get outside, it had snuffled its way up along the side of the house and was searching for ants under a large rock on the edge of the bush. BLOGGER! It was hard to get a good photo there without frightening it off - but any photo of an ECHIDNA! is better than none.

I would say ENJOY! except that the little man is still declining to accept my photos. I'll try again tomorrow.

Wildlife Wednesday .........

We have had a pretty wild life this week ... lots of visitors of the animal and insect variety (heaven forbid a human should come here...). These rather cocky cockatoos look very pretty and ARE very pretty (striking might be a better word) but when I see them arrive I start running around the deck, waving brooms and encouraging them to GO! NOW! because they are very destructive birds in the human world. They love to sharpen their beaks (?? or at least that's the only reason I can think of) by pecking and pulling at pieces of wood - and our house has a lot of timber in it. In the bush (and garden) they create havoc by breaking twigs and sometimes quite large branches off trees - apparently just for the fun of it - I don't mind that, it's their world too - but I get very anxious when they take a fancy to our house, as we have a lot of timber in it.






















By contrast, the crimson rosellas that visit are very timid and shy birds. The cockatoos have a very loud raucous call (shriek!), but the crimson rosellas have a beautiful, musical piping call. They always visit in pairs. Over Christmas and early in the year we had a pair that came every day. They became quite friendly and would land on the railing of the deck and call to get our attention and some seed. But we must have gone away for a few days and we haven't seen them since. The pair that have been coming this week are very timid - hence a single one in the photo.

The rainbow lorikeets often travel in a large flock, but this pair have been going solo - talk about lovebirds! They sound just like budgerigars when they are de-miting each other and having a little love-in as in this photo. They are not timid birds and will take food from your hand once they know you. Some years if we feed them more often, they'll fly down and land on your hand as you take a piece of fruit out to the feeding tray!






































The last visitor was a dragonfly - they are the most beautiful insects and this was a very large one - waiting outside the backdoor on a hanging basket. When I saw it, I dumped the washing basket! and raced in to get the camera - however it took exception to having a camera thrust up its nose and flew away.

Fortunately, it didn't go far and I was able to follow it around taking far too many photos, trying to catch the vivid colouring of its eyes and body, and the detail of the lacework and beautiful shine of its transparent wings.

The photos don't do justice to its colouring, but I was very pleased to get them.

So much for a knitting blog. I seem to have lost my knitting mojo (I have no idea what a mojo is, but that seems to be the word to use. I feel like a kid who has just discovered a new word at school and is trying it out at home - please tell me if it's an unsuitable word for a granny - I wouldn't want to embarrass myself more than I usually do!!) Getting broadband wasn't such a good idea - I seem to spend all my time reading knitting blogs and not doing any knitting!

Night & Day ...

Some people stay up too late at night - which is how they manage to photograph the moon. I'm sure sleep would be much more beneficial. This was taken about 12.05am on Saturday morning in the north-east.
This second Saturday Sky was taken about 10.30am in the south-west. Before someone tells me that these directions are impossible, remember that I am spatially challenged - a label that encompasses map reading, direction finding, reverse parking, knitting graph reading, pattern modification, school uniform sewing ... need I go on. The only thing that I am good at in the spatial department, is estimating the size of jar or tupperware container that I need for any given amount of liquid or leftovers - and even there I have had some spectacular mis-estimates! More later if I have time.

Wildlife Wednesday .......... well, everyone else has a day .......

More wildlife- this time a largish kookaburra which landed with a thump on our deck rail as soon as we sat down to eat lunch. It had been in the tree, but fancied its chances when it saw food - it's obviously used to being hand fed. Grandpa Flea went to place a piece of meat on the railing and the kookaburra lunged forward to take it from his fingers.

We are a bit wary of birds that get too close when food is involved - once we were quite innocently sitting in a national park eating our lunch, surrounded by birds that were apparently used to being fed scraps by visitors (as they kept invading our space and were not too happy to go away when we "shoo'ed" them). Grandpa Flea was about to put a piece of sandwich in his mouth when a huge crow swept down, snatching the piece of food from his fingers. In the process, it gave him a nasty abrasion on his hand from its sharp beak. We decided to sit in the car to finish our meal and .... shades of Alfred Hitchcock .... dozens of these birds landed on the bonnet pecking at the windscreen, making it quite clear that if they could break in, they would! It was very unsettling - well, let's be honest here - it was downright frightening even though we were inside the car.


It's amazing how some birds within a group, all with the same colouring and all about the same size, can quickly become recognisable as individuals. This is our favourite - "Cranky Pants". We assume he is male, as he is the dominant bird of a pair that visit regularly. He scolds at us if we approach too close, and he gets very annoyed when I take his photo. You can see him giving me some very explicit advice on where to go in this photo! I must do some reading up on lorikeets - I would have thought that it is too late in the season for mating, but Cranky Pants was in fine form today, doing an amazing display for his mate - almost a snake dance with his head, whispering sweet nothings in her ears and making an enormous display of flapping his wings. When he became a bit too amorous, his "meek" little partner gave him a peck and buzzed him off!


And for Carson a visit from a large brushtail possum.

And so to knitting - I bet you'd forgotten that this is a knitting blog .... today was the Knitting group at Cherryhills, my LYS. A whole pile of Debbie Bliss books have come in - but how many knitting books can one person use? I think I'd like to live in that shop - I could have yarnball baths at night - go to bed on a pile of yarn as soft as featherdown, cuddling several balls of soft Annie Blatt angora - tie pieces of ?Annie Blatt "Fleur" around my neck for necklaces - knit myself bedsocks and hot water bottle covers in any combination of yarns I fancied - wear the smell of new books for perfume - aaaaahhhh - the list is endless.
Despite my obvious yarn addiction, I came home with only ONE ball of plain wool to add to a skirt I'm knitting for one of the little fleas,and a pattern book for Freedom wool - I think my daughter-outlaw would look great in one of these vests - let's hope it gets finished instead of FROGGED numerous times before being forever consigned to that great frogged pond in the sky - whoops - I mean the back room.

I'm off to bed.

Sunday here, is Saturday there ...

...... fortunately, as I forgot to get a "Saturday Sky" photo on Saturday (here). So I'm cheating (since it's Saturday there!). The sky is not anything remarkable today - just dull grey - so this is a photo of the sky earlier this summer when bushfires were creating a smoke haze which made the most remarkable sunset. It's all the more remarkable, because we rarely see much sunset here - we're in a valley surrounded by tall trees (how did you guess?) and this photo is of the southern sky.

Possum Magic

There is a wonderful Australian children's book called Possum Magic, written by Mem Fox. Possum magic is what I feel whenever I see little possum bits in the holes to the possum boxes. Today is very hot, the sort of day when bits appear - perhaps seeking a cool breeze - and there it is, a tiny possum foot peeping out of the hole. I've blown the photo up as far as seems reasonable - don't you love the cute little toes?