BERRIES

Our Autumn has started mildly with mainly fine weather, warm days and cool nights. Under the sunshine, the wild berries are ripening in the forest.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

EMERALD GOAT

Emerald is a town and semi-rural locality in the Greater Melbourne area, Victoria, Australia, 44 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district, outside the urban area. Its local government areas are the Shires of Cardinia and Yarra Ranges. At the 2011 Census, Emerald had a population of 5,813.Emerald also includes Cardinia Reservoir, Melbourne's second largest reservoir. There are many farmlets in the area and it's not unusual to come across friendly, spoiled livestock, such as this goat, that we were tempted to call "Casper"... 

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

SUMMER AFTERNOON

A lazy Summer afternoon, walking leisurely in the shade of the trees, enjoying the warmth. The sky blue and clear reflected in the still pond waters. How fortunate to be able to enjoy such serenity!

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme

and also part of the Weekend Green meme

PURPLE SWAMP HENS

The Australasian swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus), family Rallidae, is a species of swamphen occurring in eastern Indonesia, the Moluccas, Aru and Kai Islands, as well as in Papua New Guinea and Australia. It is also found in New Zealand where it is known as the Pūkeko, derived from the Māori language. The Australasian swamphen previously was considered a subspecies of the purple swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio).

For such a bulky bird, the Swamphen is an accomplished flier and will readily take to the air to escape danger. In flight, the long legs and elongated toes trail behind or hang underneath the body. Purple Swamphens are proficient swimmers, but prefer to wander on the edges of the water, among reeds and on floating vegetation.

The diet of the Purple Swamphen includes the soft shoots of reeds and rushes and small animals, such as frogs and snails. However, it is a reputed egg stealer and will also eat ducklings when it can catch them. The Purple Swamphen uses its long toes to grasp food while eating.

Purple Swamphens are generally found in small groups and studies have shown that these consist of more males than females. More than one male will mate with a single female. All family members, and occasionally the young from a previous brood, share in incubation and care of the young. The nest consists of a platform of trampled reeds with the surrounding vegetation sometimes being used to form a shelter. Often two broods will be raised in a year.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the I'd Rather Be Birdin' meme.

NANKEEN NIGHT HERON

The nankeen night heron (Nycticorax caledonicus) also commonly referred to as the rufous night heron, and in Melanesia as Melabaob, is a medium-sized heron. It is found in Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and throughout much of Australia except the arid inland. A small colony has also established near Wanganui, New Zealand.

The nankeen night heron stands about 60 cm tall with a stooped appearance. It is a stocky heron with rich cinnamon upperparts, white-buff underparts, a black crown, and yellow legs and feet. The head is large, the neck short (giving a stooped appearance), and the legs relatively short. During breeding the back of the head bears three white nuptial plumes. The bill is dark olive-green, and the eyes are yellow. Young birds are heavily spotted and streaked white, brown and orange-brown. As they mature, the black cap of the adult develops first, with the body plumage remaining streaked for some time.

It is not strictly nocturnal. It often feeds during the day, especially during wet weather. The bird is dependent on a diet of small fish, reptiles, insects and sometimes eggs. It can be seen around freshwater rivers, lakes, bulrushes, estuaries, harbours and in residential fishponds for goldfish.

The species breeds in the period from September to April, building a nest platform out of sticks. It nests communally, near water. Two to five light green eggs are laid, with a 22-day incubation followed by a 42- to 49-day fledging period. Widespread throughout its large range, the nankeen night heron is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the I'd Rather Be Birdin' meme.

MIDSUMMER SKY

A beautiful warm, sunny and fine day for the Summer Solstice. And so the year begins its decline as we mark the longest day and shortest night...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

MAYFLY SEASON

No, don't try to clean your monitor screen... The tiny spots you see in the photo are not dirt on the glass, they are hundreds if not thousands of little mayflies. 

Mayflies (also known as Canadian soldiers in the United States, or shadflies or fishflies in Canada and Michigan; also up-winged flies in the United Kingdom ) are aquatic insects belonging to the order Ephemeroptera. This order is part of an ancient group of insects termed the Palaeoptera, which also contains dragonflies and damselflies.

Over 3,000 species of mayfly are known worldwide, grouped into over 400 genera in 42 families. Mayflies are relatively primitive insects and exhibit a number of ancestral traits that were probably present in the first flying insects, such as long tails and wings that do not fold flat over the abdomen. Their immature stages are aquatic fresh water forms (called "naiads" or "nymphs").

They are unique among insect orders in having a fully winged terrestrial adult stage, the subimago, which moults into a sexually mature adult, the imago. Mayflies "hatch" (emerge as adults) from spring to autumn, not necessarily in May, in enormous numbers. Seeing lots of mayflies in the Darebin Parklands close to where we live is good news as their presence indicates a clean, unpolluted environment!

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

CHICKS ARE GROWING...

You may have seen some photos of the nesting moorhen I posted. The chicks are really growing fast now and have almost reached adult size.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the I'd Rather Be Birdin' meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme.

KEEP OUR PLANET GREEN!

You may have seen in my other blog the "tiny planet" construction from a panoramic photo. I used the same principle here to create a poster on a recycling theme that one of the voluntary groups I am in, needed. You may use it for your recycling purposes also, if you like.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme.

BY THE CREEK

On the banks of the Darebin Creek in suburban Melbourne, the seaside daisy (Erigeron karvinskianus) blooms.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

EASTERN ROSELLA

The eastern rosella (Platycercus eximius) is a rosella native to southeast of the Australian continent and to Tasmania. It has been introduced to New Zealand where feral populations are found in the North Island [2] (notably in the northern half of the island and in the Hutt Valley) and in the hills around Dunedin in the South Island.

Three subspecies of eastern rosella are recognised:
P. e. eximius, Victoria and southern New South Wales. Black feathers on the back have green margins. Rump is pale green.
P. e. elecica, northeast New South Wales and southeast Queensland. In the male the black feathers on the back have golden-yellow margins, and greenish-yellow in the female. The rump is bluish-green. This subspecies is also called the golden-mantled rosella, often abbreviated to GMR.
P. e. diemenensis, eastern Tasmania. White cheek patches are larger and the red on the head is darker.

The eastern rosella is 30 cm long. It has a red head and white cheeks. The beak is white and the irises are brown. The upper breast is red and the lower breast is yellow fading to pale green over the abdomen. The feathers of the back and shoulders are black, and have yellowish or greenish margins giving rise to a scalloped appearance that varies slightly between the subspecies and the sexes. The wings and lateral tail feathers are bluish while the tail is dark green. The legs are grey. The female is similar to the male though duller in colouration and has an underwing stripe, which is not present in the adult male. Juveniles are duller than females and have an underwing stripe. The diet of eastern rosellas mainly consists of fruit, seeds, flowers and insects.

Eastern rosellas usually breed in spring but if needed summer as well. They can have 2-9 eggs. In the wild their breeding hollow is 1m deep and 30m high up a tree. The sign the eastern rosella mostly shows that they would be breeding is that they give food to each other. 

The eastern rosella is sometimes kept as a pet. These birds are desired for their beautifully coloured plumage. They are intelligent creatures, which can be trained to whistle a wide repertoire of tunes and may even learn to speak a few words or phrases. Rosellas can make good companion parrots; however, they require a great deal of attention and many toys to satisfy their need for social interaction and mental stimulation. These birds sometimes won't adapt to life as a family pet. Hand-raised birds can be fully domesticated, but usually they turn out still wild. Usually, this species doesn't like getting “petted” or “cuddled” and can bite in response to this type of handling. Many people believe that rosellas are best housed in large aviaries that enable them to fly freely with minimal human socialization. Despite these difficulties, many people enjoy the eastern rosella as a beautiful but sometimes feisty pet bird.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the I'd Rather Be Birdin' meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

ROSE

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme.

DAREBIN CREEK

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Weekend Reflections meme.

GUM TREES

Gum tree is a common name for smooth-barked trees and shrubs in three closely related genera of Eucalypt: Eucalyptus, which includes the majority of species of gum trees. Corymbia, which includes the Ghost gums and Spotted gums. Angophora, which includes the Sydney red gum. These evergreen trees are characteristic of Australia and give our winter landscapes their green colour.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the My Town Shootout meme.

LICHEN

A lichen is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi in a symbiotic relationship. The combined lichen has properties different from those of its component organisms and confer upon both partners benefits that aid their survival.

Lichens come in many colours, sizes, and forms. The properties are sometimes plant-like, but lichens are not plants. Lichens may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose), flat leaf-like structures (foliose), flakes that lie on the surface like peeling paint (crustose), or other growth forms.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme.

EUCALYPTUS IN FLOWER

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees and shrubs (including a distinct group with a multiple-stem mallee growth habit) in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia, and include Eucalyptus regnans, the tallest known flowering plant on Earth.

There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus and most are native to Australia; a very small number are found in adjacent areas of New Guinea and Indonesia. One species, Eucalyptus deglupta, ranges as far north as the Philippines. Of the 15 species found outside Australia, just nine are exclusively non-Australian.

Species of eucalyptus are cultivated widely in the tropical and temperate world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, China, and the Indian subcontinent. However, the range over which many eucalypts can be planted in the temperate zone is constrained by their limited cold tolerance. Australia is covered by 92,000,000 hectares (227,336,951 acres) of eucalypt forest, comprising three quarters of the area covered by native forest.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

LEAF

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,
and also part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal.

AUSTRALIAN WHITE IBIS

The Australian white ibis (Threskiornis moluccus) is a wading bird of the ibis family, Threskiornithidae. It is widespread across much of Australia. It has a predominantly white plumage with a bare, black head, long downcurved bill and black legs. Its sister species is the sacred ibis. Historically rare in urban areas, the Australian white ibis has immigrated to urban areas of the east coast in increasing numbers since the late 1970s.

It is now commonly seen in Wollongong, Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Townsville. In recent years the bird has also become increasing common in Perth, Western Australia and surrounding towns in south-western Australia. Populations have disappeared from natural breeding areas such as the Macquarie Marshes in north-western New South Wales. Management plans have been introduced to control problematic urban populations in Sydney.

This post is part of the Weekend Green meme,

and also part of the Saturday Critters meme,

and also part of the Camera Critters meme.