banksia bird heaven

soft banksia cones
rainbow lorikeet crisps
ready for snacking

We have a local indigenous Banksia tree growing by our front gate. Currently it is flowering and a variety of birds, Noisy Miners, Wattle Birds and Rainbow Lorikeets are daily visitors. The Lorikeets are big in numbers and very noisy so when they arrive anyone else feeding tends to disappear. This is my contribution to Ronovan Writes #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge 349 CRISP and Soft. Visit this site to see how other poets respond to Ronovan’s challenge.

welcome

autumn guest

an agile feeder

welcome here

This beautiful little Eastern Spinebill has been visiting our garden for the last four Autumns. They are a honeyeater and seek out nectar in blossom. This is a grevillea we bought last Spring in Bendigo hoping it would attract Honeyeaters. For such a small bird they have an incredible loud and sharp whistle like call. Usually we hear them however this year we have seen him/her more often. Today when I came in the front gate I heard, then spotted the bird,feeding on Charlie’s kisses, a fuchsia  growing on Charlie’s resting place. This was an extra special moment.

The Prom

wombats play

kookaburra laughs

people search

wombats play

kookaburra laughs

people search

We have just returned from a holiday away at Wilson’s Promontory National Park, known affectionally as THE PROM. http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/wilsons-promontory-national-park This is the most Southerly point on the Australian mainland and one of the most visited national parks in the country. It had been nearly 20 years since we last visited here, in those days  carrying everything in packs and hiking on tracks for hours to  camp sites kilometres from cars etc was our forte. This time at that pampered stage of life we stayed in a fully serviced cabin with all luxuries except TV, wifi and that kind of stuff hence no posts, visits comments from me for over a week. Every day we walked, rested, watched wildlife, took photos, remembered, read, knitted and then rested some more. The peace and quiet was a therapy. We both wrote some haiku. The Wombat lived with its baby under our cabin so we were able to watch them closely, as in walk around them if they were on the paths. The Kookaburra was quietly sitting outside our window revving up for a laugh at the Wombats. There were few people around and many of them like us were out using our senses.

 During our stay the weather was often cold, windy and sometimes wet, the sky was usually overcast and sunshine a rare visitor. If you have time to visit this link https://www.google.com.au/search?q=wilsons+promontory&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmrfvf09_TAhUIfLwKHbh7CLgQsAQIfw&biw=1827&bih=1110&dpr=2 there are images of the Prom from across the year . I will post some more haiku/image stories  from our experience.

season changeover

sunset flags

autumn has fallen

coldness comes

Tonight Jill and I walked down the end of our street, through the Sandringham shopping centre over Beach Road and across to the cliffs anticipating an interesting sunset to farewell the last day of Autumn. We were not disappointed however the sun was so intense behind the thin cloud layers I struggled to focus the surrounds having to keep the lens back near 35mm as in the first image, then a rare one worked on 250mm as in the second shot.  We are lucky to witness scenes like this within 10 minutes walk from home.

I am sure Ronovan was trying to lure me away from sunset images/haiku with this weeks challenge however I was up to it. RonovanWrites Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 99 Flag&Fallen where haiku poets from all over the world unite in creativity.                                                                                                                              To be seen at https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-99-flagfallen/

fiery sky

sunset like

layered dragon breath 

invites awe

This was  a beautiful sunset I was lucky to capture at Port Fairy a couple of weeks ago. Down in the town there was no indication of the colour that was unfolding. Luckily I drove up to the beach at Pea Soup and this spectacle unfolded.  Why the dragon fire colours in the first image? an astute observer may ask. The answer, my camera flash popped up  and I took that photo  then closed the flash and kept shooting.  Port Fairy is a wonderful place to capture both sunrises and sunsets. On the East Beach sand dunes a view across the bay towards Warrnambool is flanked by Tower Hill and surrounding rises. Across at Pea Soup one looks West along the coast towards Yambuk.

The haiku and images are my contributions to RonovanWrites Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 95 Dragon&Invite to be accessed at https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-95-dragoninvite/

And the 52 week photo challenge (LAYER) to be checked out at https://daffodilwild.wordpress.com/photo-challenge/

autumn acrobat

twist and turn

leaf trapeze artist

soft landing

Autumn has quietly begun arriving and leaves from deciduous trees have decided to begin falling finally.

goodbye autumn

 

cold soundless morning

sudden fluttering of air

another leaf falls

Winter has arrived in Melbourne and to counter rising energy bills the very last of the autumn leaves are falling . This beautiful little one has come down from a semi-deciduous Liquid Amber. After weeks of cleaning spouts and raking the ground from the fallout of a giant fully deciduous cousin these leaves can be picked up by hand as they individually set off on their journey . In the image below here they were waiting on for the right time to depart.