This last Sunday we went to Swansea, a lovely little town on the Great Oyster Bay on Tasmania’s east coast.
Luna and I went for several lovely walks while Imogen met with the locals regarding their catchment issues.
The above photo is from this track:
Don’t ask me how to say it. I have no idea, other than knowing it’s the name of an indigenous tribe that lived there.
The weather that day was very variable, and I struggled with getting good light for photographs.
Luna did what Luna usually does – ignore the weather an look for critters to harry and humans to flirt with. She was successful on both counts.
That path up top looks like a nice place for a hike.
Tasmania knows how to play to its strengths and has lots of spectacular walking tracks of all lengths and fitness levels. This one was almost completely flat – my favorite.
I have yet to get a good photo of an oystercatcher. Their black confounds any effort to get detail or even a clear focus. Our other oystercatcher is the Sooty Oystercatcher, which is entirely black and even more difficult to photograph.
while we were on vacation:
Those are fantastic photos.
I’m very fond of egrets, herons and cranes. They seem to have a presence that few other birds share.
Right now Luna is being a huge pesky presence. It’s raining outside and she’s pacing the house while occassionally trying to insinuate her nose under one of my typing hands. I’ll blame any bad typing on her.
There are many egrets and ibises right there on the creek. This one had quite the personality. 🙂
Ah, the head butt of the hand. That’s Gracie’s favorite morning trick to get attention – usually with the hand that has a coffee cup in it.
Luna’s just gone out so of course it’s starting to pour again. Wet dog. My favorite.
The rain is my fault. I paid $100 to have 3000 gallons of water delivered this morning. If only I’d put more laundry on the line then this could have been a proper deluge.
Good thing we can store over 10,000 gallons, so I’ve got some place to put what we catch.
Oh look, the rains coming down diagonally and the dog’s coming back towards the house. Noe, I was wrong. She was just going to her bowl. I suspect she’ll wait until she’s good and soaked before she’ll ask to come in – maybe lie down in a puddle for good measure.
I posted this on July 12 in your diary about our new dog Lucy:
OK, so that was Thursday, July 12. The event I refer to here occurred about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, July 14 (crossposted from my blog)
I cannot begin to describe how much gratitude and love I feel towards Lucy.
She’s been an absolute blessing and angel to us.
To be honest, I don’t go to sleep most nights until about 3 a.m. now. I’ll go out about 2 – 2:30 a.m. and patrol the yard with the flashlight shining in all the corners with Lucy beside me. I don’t know if anyone is still watching the house or not. On the off chance someone is I’ve wanted the person to see the house is aggressively on alert.
But Lucy is just a true companion and a member of this family.
I wouldn’t feel anywhere near as safe in this world if it weren’t for my dogs. As the top photo shows, Luna and I are often the only ones on remote walks. With Luna along I never worry about unpleasant encounters. Who would dare?
Small or large, my dogs all looked out for me. Especially as women living rurally, a dog really makes me feel much more comfortable – even if Luna mostly barks at the wind or the rabbits. There comes the time when it was clearly something more sinister than a rabbit, which makes the rest of the noise worth putting up with.
Lucy is clearly a gem of a dog. And if you didn’t know the name Lucy means “light”.
I thought this Silver Gull turned out nice.
Oh, this cracked me up. Maybe you should get some dogs to keep the deer off of your new septic field.
Maybe I can talk to the Pack and they can suggest where I can find some that aren’t fully occupied with sleeping. 😛
I still remember (when I lived in Oregon) going outside in the morning to find the tulips all de-headed by the deer during the night. These tulips were in a fenced front yard in which our three, count them – three! Great Pyrenees dogs were sleeping on the porch not more than twenty feet away.
Ninja deer.
But at least your deer had the decency to sneak in at night. I believe the Pack is about to be renamed the Rodney Dangerfields.
LOL.
No respect, I tell ya’.
Oh, I almost forgot. I put up the list of Tasmanian butterflies on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there are almost no entries for the individual species – so it’s mostly just a list. I’ll be populating the list with actual links as I have the time and inclination. And adding photos, of course. I see a field trip to the Butterfly House in the north end of the state in my future. Obviously, I’ll have to wait for spring. It’s in the same complex as the platypus house and seahorse world, so there’ll be plenty to do and see.
Yeah, that page isn’t too exciting at this point. If you want my opinion — and no, I really don’t want to know if you do 😛 — I think getting those pics up on the tasmania bird page would be an excellent occupation for those cold nights.
Yes ma’am. Right away ma’am. (Were you ever in the military? I’ve just got this funny feeling. . . .)
what a wet Alpaca looks like?
From left to right: Inti, Pacha, and Nina. They have a barn, with hay on the floor, but will they use it. . . nooooo.
How can you possibly tell them apart? You’re like the mother of triplets.
Nina’s the momma, and very imperious/reproachful looking. Inti’s her son, and a big goofball. Pacha is Nina’s daughter, and a year younger than Inti, and a great big flirt. Granted, when they’re a ways off, I do get them mixed up.
… and looks like she knows a really good joke that she isn’t sharing.
Great shot.
Sandy’s actually a boy, but he won’t care that you called him a girl.
The sexing the alpaca wiki page neglected to say how to do it from a (literal) head shot. 😛
Sexing the alpaca. Sounds like a great read.
If it makes you feel any better, Sandy was probably neutered young and actually has a more “feminine” face than Nina. By comparison, we had Inti neutered when he was just over a year-old, so he’s got more of male (heavier and slightly convex) profile.
Lo and behold, they were actually inside the shed when I went outside a few minutes ago. I guess the combination of heavy rains and freezing over-night temps drove them to such an extreme.
It’s actually looking like it’s going to be a beautiful day, although more rain is forecasted for later.