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2013-06-19 04:04:31 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Two beautiful women -my mother who is 90 years old today and my niece who is about to turn 30

This was taken at my mum's 90th birthday party on Sunday; one of the few I took myself as I was much too busy with the 60+ guests providing food, drinks and generally being hostess. It was a great celebration and we are so glad we did it!
The upside, apart from everyone enjoying seeing mum again after at least a few years due to all her hospitalization and then moving to care, was that it seemed to unlock her memory of people and events and bring her back to life as far as being more aware and remembering who she is. Not just an old lady in a wheelchair who can't do much but a woman who has loads of friends and family who love and respect her and who remember her as a vibrant, happy, social and fun person to be with!
It was like magic! We were all on tenterhooks about how she... more »

2013-06-18 14:28:20 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

Who's a pretty boy then?
I rarely get the opportunity to take Blackbird photos because they are very wary, skittish birds and don't stay around if they sense danger including the dog just being out there so it has been great that he likes being inside in the warmth and the Blackbirds of which this one of about three males I have seen, can hunt for worms and grubs in the soil in my garden. This guy sat there for a while and turned around toward me also but I liked this shot best because it shows his beautiful black feathers as well as his yellow beak and eye also encircled with yellow. Just beautiful!

#todaytuesday by +Brian White
+birds4all #birds4all by +Walter Soestbergen

2013-06-18 13:21:22 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

History being torn down
This old Masonic Lodge and the building beside it are being demolished to make way for new buildings yet to be revealed. The lodge building can't come down completely until October when the contract for the billboards on the roof ends.
Once this is gone, then we can no longer say, 'That's where we held our wedding reception' It's weird looking back on how the environment you live in changes. I guess it shows I'm getting old when I can tell you what was on a local site back quite a few years!

#mytowntuesday +My Town Tuesday by +Melanie Kintz +Jamie Furlong

#repetitivetuesday +Repetitive Tuesday by +Frank Schillinger +Ping Doherty +Andy Q.

#cableicous  

2013-06-18 02:54:19 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

Fuzzy face
Profile of a Dainty Swallowtail butterfly for #fuzzywuzzy

#macromonday +Macro Monday by +Kerry Murphy +Jennifer Eden +Kelli Seeger Kim

+On the Wings of Butterflies!  #onthewingsofbutterflies  by +Sharon Jeannette and +Cicely Robin Laing 

#inpraiseofpollinators  by +Dusty Gedge 

2013-06-18 02:09:27 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Bare bones showing on this demolition site
This building is very close to the footpath on the other side so the wreckers have had to be careful pulling it down. Strangely enough, there is still a glazed window here but the rest is devoid of its outer covering.

#tuesdecay +TuesDecay by +Ian Ference +Jean-Claude Dahn +Christian Gruner

2013-06-17 11:33:34 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

Local street art tells story

I've been meaning to go and take a panorama of this wall for a long time but finally got around to it today.
This is a 7 frame panorama stitched with Canon's Photostitch. I had to shoot through a black cyclone mesh fence so it was not easy plus I think someone has changed or added to the original but maybe it's just dirt making it look that way.

#HowIShotThisPhoto #streetart #panorama

2013-06-17 11:08:39 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Twisted Metal

This pile of debris is just a smalll amount of stuff from a local building demolition.

#metallicmonday +#MetallicMonday by +Thomas Raschbacher 

2013-06-14 14:21:53 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Aussie teen found cure for MRSA

2013-06-14 12:12:44 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

One of three new Pentax models being launched
This one is a mirrorless ultra-compact interchangeable lens 12 Mp camera with a larger sensor area than the previous Q and Q10 models. For those who like custom coloured cameras, it can be bought in 120 colour combinations too!!

2013-06-14 11:27:05 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 27 +1s)

Tall and Pretty

#floralfriday +FloralFriday by +Tamara Pruessner 

2013-06-14 10:23:41 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

Phone Home
This strange sight just appeared one night when we were traveling in the car. I have no idea what it means and my only interpretation was some attempt at communication from alien life-forms. Were they trying to tell us to use our phone or that they wanted to phone home?
As quickly as it appeared and I had time for this shot, it was gone again so maybe we will never know!

#alienabductionfriday +Alien Abduction Friday by +Alex Lapidus +Heiko Mahr +Karl Geiger +Karl Geiger Jr +116108977026346083784 +Jon Beall

2013-06-13 11:49:11 (20 comments, 0 reshares, 23 +1s)

Winter’s Lullaby

Tis winter now, the time has come
To let go of your grasp and fall.
New buds already swell beside you,
Time to leave, time to fall.
Next time the breeze should come your way,
Release your hold and float.
Tis winter now, the time has come,
Let go, float, fly and fall!
Then settle down upon the ground,
And gently rest, the time is now.

by Kim Sinclair

#winterwednesday by +Antoine Berger +Logan Miller
+Pen and Lens Wednesday  #penandlenswednesday   by +Michelle Potter 

#leavesonthursday   +Leaves On Thursday by +Marilou Aballe +Ray Bilcliff

2013-06-12 15:14:35 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 23 +1s)

I'm the king of the world!

This Little Pied Heron had the prized position at the top of a tree on a little island at a local pond. There were several of them there; some in trees and some by the shore but none were fishing. It was quite cold and windy that day too so it would have been cold up there if not for a good covering of feathers!

+Water Bird Wednesday by +Ray Bilcliff +Sherry McBriar +Margaret Tompkins

2013-06-12 10:39:26 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Green but not growing

#windowwednesday +#Window Wednesday by +Jules Falk Hunter +Simon Davis-Oakley +Jason Kowing +Cheryl Cooper +J.J. Bentley +Catherine Furet

2013-06-12 03:07:07 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Insect Lovers, this may interest you!
Lucid has a Mobile Android app now which is a key to the Insect orders. Could be very handy, and it's free! :)

2013-06-11 12:54:05 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 32 +1s)

Purple plumes explode with seeds as they wave in the breeze on this native green grass

Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Nafray' is a drought hardy native grass that flowers in winter and looks wonderful in mass plantings.

#grasstuesday +Grass Tuesday by +Ray Bilcliff +Marilou Aballe +Margaret Tompkins

2013-06-10 16:51:27 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

Happy Birthday to my friend, fellow-buglady, and now, co-curator +Mandy Allen
I hope you have a great day Mandy. Here's one of my photos taken when my Carpet Rose was in full bloom. (っ◕‿◕)っ ♥

2013-06-10 10:59:42 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

I see music!
Needs to be viewed larger
I took this photo and several others while travelling home in the car and was enjoying the weird light writing effects of initially unplanned movement and then later purposely orchestrating the effect.
This is one of my favourite because the light writing is like musical notes and it made me think about what it would look like if we could see a display like that from cars that had music playing inside.

#HowIshotthisphoto by +Vince Ong 
#fromthecartuesday by +J. Rae Chip +M. Ahmad

2013-06-10 07:31:18 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Congratulations to entomologist, Dr David Rentz on his Order of Australia

2013-06-10 07:21:46 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Are we there yet?

Heading on down the freeway to visit my son, I took this through the car window!

#leadinglinesmonday +Leading Lines Monday by +Pam Boling +Michael B. Stuart +Elle Rogers +David Murphy +Andreas Levi +Simos Xenakis

#monochromemonday +Monochrome Monday by +Hans Berendsen +Jerry Johnson +Manuel Votta +Steve Barge +Nurcan Azaz 

2013-06-10 06:00:36 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Sim loves playing with the guys and his toys. He sure can leap high when he wants to!

#autoawesome  

2013-06-09 13:34:37 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Photos 1440 Challenge photography competition
Not sure if anyone else has seen this but it may be something some of our  talented Melbourne photographers would be interested in entering. 

2013-06-08 14:04:52 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

Round and soft...squish...a hard centre
Here are the seeds encased in the red berries on the strange looking seedpod I posted a while ago. They were almost all gone and I decided to pull the rest off and found they squished easily in my fingers revealing the hard brown seeds of the Arum Lily which is classified as a weed in parts of Australia due to its propencity to spread along creek lines.

I also found out while researching this that the berries are toxic to stock and humans! So glad I washed my hands well after I handled these!

#seedurday +Seedurday by +Kathryn Brown

2013-06-08 13:39:28 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

Mooove over

This cow bench was at a farm I visited recently for a child's party. Certainly not something you see at the local park where benches look like benches!

#benchsaturday by +Rainer M. Ritz

2013-06-07 13:30:30 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

What ewe looking at?

This beauty was another animal I saw at a children's party farm. She didn't seem terribly impressed with any of it!

#farmfriday #farmingfriday +Farm Friday by +Ellie Kennard +Steven Kennard

2013-06-07 13:12:37 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Parrots appear to name their babies

2013-06-07 13:00:58 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 26 +1s)

Hidden communications and monitoring wires discovered

Marianne is right; the garden is the place to look for alien activity as I too discovered. The original idea that aliens are human-sized is being disproved by signs of micro and maybe even nano invaders among us!
This strange communication cable was found well hidden under a suspicious creeping weed and try as I might, I could not remove it from the fence! See how they have attached some kind of strong suction pads to hold it in place? I wonder what it all does?

#alienabductionfriday +Alien Abduction Friday by +Alex Lapidus +Heiko Mahr +Karl Geiger +Karl Geiger Jr +116108977026346083784 +Jon Beall

2013-06-07 10:51:39 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 24 +1s)

Johnny Jump Up
These are Johnny Jump Up viola flowers which have been growing in our garden somewhere or other for years but we hadn't seen any for a while so when these appeared in our back garden by the pond, we were very surprised.
Usually when these flowers are planted in the garden they continue to self-seed every year but we seemed to have a break from them for a few years and they were always around the front before.
The pleasant surprises that can be found in gardens!

#floralfriday +FloralFriday by +Tamara Pruessner 

2013-06-07 10:17:24 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

A bit of colour added to a drab city building

A colourful building I saw in inner Melbourne recently. It sure stands out among the other grey drab city buildings.

#colorsonfriday +ColorsOnFriday by +Britta Rogge +Karsten Meyer

2013-06-07 02:37:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

Foraging for worms and grubs
I tried twice to post a photo of this pair of Magpie Larks/Mudlarks but for some strange reason, it disappears, not just to me but presumably everyone else since I have not had one comment of plus one on either of them. They must have just been sucked up into the black hole of cyberspace! Where are my posts +Google ?

Anyway, here is another #autoawesome  of the pair foraging among the mulch for some tucker. 

2013-06-07 01:50:36 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

The paddles on the good ship Coot
The Eurasian Coot has partially webbed feet which protrude past the tail when swimming so it can paddle around easily foraging for algae, plants and pond-life.

#feetfriday +Feet Friday by +Carrie McGann
#birds4all by +Walter Soestbergen 

2013-06-06 14:53:21 (11 comments, 2 reshares, 13 +1s)

Water, water, all around and not a drop to drink
These Black Swans were drinking fresh water coming into the sea from a drain and I took several shots which sort of made a sequence so I uploaded them but didn't share at the time to see if they became an animated #autoawesome  picture and forgot all about them until I came across them tonight. 
The reddish-gold light is from the setting sun which is why I went down to the seashore in the first place. 

#birds   #blackswan   #Australianswan  

2013-06-06 14:19:43 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Caterpillar invasion in south London

2013-06-06 15:26:32 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 16 +1s)

A baby brother!
This is me looking at my new baby brother and, believe it or not, my mum who was unfortunately grey by the time she was 35 years old. She did end up dying her hair back to its original brown after that because my father said she looked more like his grandmother than his mother!
So, my little brother's arrival changed everyone's lives! As new members of the family do of course.

#blastfromthepast +Blast From The Past by +Cheryl Cooper +Mark Rodriguez +Isabelle Fortin

2013-06-06 12:10:28 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 20 +1s)

Hands up

Plus 1 will do since you can't put your hands up here...so hands up if you love autumn!

Actually, I took this officially in winter but here are some remaining autumnn leaves on the Liquid Ambar tree next door. It's one of my favourite autumn trees; I love the hand shap of the leaves and the colours are always so gorgeous ranging from yellow right through the shades of orange to deep red! I even like seeing them on the garden path even though it means I'll have to sweep them up so here is autumn's last hurrah. Enjoy!

+leaves on thursday #leavesonthursday by +Anne Durand +Stephen Thackeray +Ray Billcliff

2013-06-06 08:56:19 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 20 +1s)

Two chaps from the Ministry of Silly Walks

Purple Swamp Hens concentrating on looking for food and moving in a very synchronized manner at the moment of this photograph.

A late one for +Water Bird Wednesday by +Ray Bilcliff +Sherry McBriar +Margaret Tompkins

2013-06-05 14:07:26 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 19 +1s)

Winter Favourite Things (they're not all favourite actually!)

Raindrop on fern fronds and wet, soggy mail,
Wet fur and wagging a splashy wet tail.
Birds tucked up tight in their sheltering wings
These are a few of my favourite things

Frost in the morning and bitter cold gales,
Ground that is white when it's littered with hail.
Loud thunderstorms with amazing light-ning
These are a few of my favourite things!

Crackling logs on a blazing warm fire,
Drinking hot chocolate before I retire.
Knowing that after all this there is spring
These are a few of my favourite things.

When the wind howls,
When the rain pounds,
When the winter's here
I simply rug up in my warm cosy things and come and see friends right here!

#winterwednesday by +Antoine Berger +Logan Miller... more »

2013-06-05 13:19:14 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Lines and Squares

I know, they are not quite squares but that sounds better than rectangles or oblongs!

#windowwednesday +#Window Wednesday by +Jules Falk Hunter +Simon Davis-Oakley +Jason Kowing +Cheryl Cooper +J.J. Bentley +Catherine Furet

2013-06-05 08:59:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Incredible advance in brain control open opportunities for disabled in the future

2013-06-05 08:34:52 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

2013-06-05 00:50:56 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Rediscovered Hula painted frog 'is a living fossil' :- The Hula painted frog was last seen in Israel the 1950s - until it was found again in 2011 by a park ranger

2013-06-04 13:54:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Interesting way to monitor pests using technology so that our honey bee will not be infested with the same mite that has devastated numbers of overseas bees!

2013-06-04 13:10:09 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Autumn leaves - last few on the tree

I tried out manual focus for the first time since I got the SX50 because I was having trouble with the light seeming to stop the camera focusing where I wanted it to on auto. I have posted this unedited so you can see how it turned out. 

2013-06-04 12:31:01 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 23 +1s)

Transport structures and train passing over
Passing under a train going over a bridge, I snapped this shot through the car window. I like all the metal structures and the wire and felt monochrome would best show these features.

#transporttuesday +TransportTuesday by +Gene Bowker +Joe Paul +Michael Earley +Annie Irving

2013-06-04 10:49:33 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Doggy delights

These treats for dogs to chew on were on display in a pet shop and I thought they looked neat. I presume dogs think they look good too so be careful when viewing this photo in front of your K9 or it might drool on your keyboard!

#repetitivetuesday +Repetitive Tuesday by +Frank Schillinger +Ping Doherty +Andy Q.

2013-06-04 10:10:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Plane by name but not plain by nature
Plane trees line many city streets in Melbourne making them far more beautiful and enhancing city dwellers and visitors lives. These ones are in a street which has areas of Queen Victoria Market on either side of it.

#TreeTuesday +Tree Tuesday curated by +Christina Lawrie & +Shannon S. Myers.

2013-06-04 02:02:12 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Looking for an ID for this pond dweller. Does anyone have any idea what it might be?
Poster's description was: .it is about 2 inches long, no visible legs and swims fast with those feathery gills. Found in Cincinnati, Ohio.

2013-06-04 00:31:18 (12 comments, 2 reshares, 34 +1s)

Don't mess with me!

This punky looking dragon lizard was on display at a kids farm I went to recently. The red on it comes from the heating lamp.

+Reptile Monday #reptilemonday by +Will Pirnasch

#punk

2013-06-03 11:56:33 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Do I look abandoned and decaying in this reflection?

A question that might be asked by the building in the reflection since the mirrored glass seems to have given it that kind of a look but I'm sure it wasn't really.

#Mirrors and Reflections curated by Gemma Costa
#MirrorMonday curated by +Gemma Costa +Elizabeth Edwards

2013-06-03 09:11:01 (10 comments, 2 reshares, 17 +1s)

Like a bird on a wire

A male House Sparrow sitting along on the power line in our street.

#backyardbirdingmonday

+birds4all #birds4all by +walter Soestbergen