Flashed flowers #8

Wattle season is over in Sydney, the Callistemon season has started, these ones are stolen from the neighbourhood. This one might be callistemon citrons, but hard to tell. Callistemon citrons is also know as "Endeavour", which is the one used in street planting in greater Sydney. It has taken me a long time to consider collision beautiful, as I associated them with dried up dusty suburban nature strips, their fluffy leaves blacked and polluted by parked cars. Haico loves them and he has opened my eyes to how the flowers are delicate and beautiful. Andrew McQualter and I have drawn them in our collaborative wall paintings "Constructed woodlands". The flowers on the type in the vase are slightly longer and fatter than the "Endeavour", and the leaves are smooth rather than fluffy.

Scaevola "Purple fanfare" from our garden- this one flowers all year round.

Kangaroo paw from our garden, photographed before, these have been flowering continuously for 3 months now.

All in 60s west German ceramic vases.

Harassed Sea-Eagle

Cycling in to Sawtooth on Friday I heard a mixture of Masked Lapwing (I notice people call them "plovers" here) and Magpie alarm calls. Looking up I saw an adult White-bellied Sea-Eagle being chased and harried. Penny had told me you could sometimes see them over the Gorge, so I was not so surprised to see one, but never the less still find it quiet amazing that an urban centre 60km (?) inland is visited by one of these birds.

post impact from a bold Magpie 

It's a bit hard to see in this photo but the belly is a solid white

Twitch tip #1: Nankeen Night Heron

After my talk at the Launceston Art School I got a good twitch tip from Penny Mason, head of Painting.

Nankeen Night Heron, Lauceston Gorge, about 500 metre in from the gate keepers cottage.

I must remember to keep my camera in the horizontal position...

"a triumphant goshawk"

From the Launceston Examiner Tuesday 13/9/11. Photo by Julian and Oriana Santamaria. I particularly like that that s/he is eating a feral Spotted Turtle-Dove.

I have seen a couple of Grey Goshawks- one who is resident in the Royal National Park south of Sydney and the other in the mangroves near the Cairns airport- however both where the grey morph. Fingers crossed I see Launie's resident. Any tips on a reliable spot for a sighting?

A beginning: again

Tamar Islands Wetlands this morning with Liam and Fernando filming. I arrived in Launceston on Monday and since then it been a fairly hectic schedule of work.

For those who follow my blog regularly, my blog has been temporarily taken over by a project I am working on called I live with birds, which is part of a larger exhibition: Iteration:again.


This is just the briefest of posts as its time to sort out a artist talk that I will be giving at the Art School at 12:30.

Flashed flowers #7

3 wattles from Canberra and Namadgee National Park. The last vase was too heavy to hold up.

Flashed flowers #6

Ornamental blossom trees outside the front of the Music School ANU.

List keeper

Two still from the video I have been working on. It will be in the National artist's self portrait prize at the University of Queensland Art Museum.

Shop lifting bird

A short video of a seagull taking advantage of the chaos during the London riots to do a bit of looting of his own. My feeling is that he might have done a bit of shop lifting before or at least was used to people emerging with food from this door. I love the way he "runs" away.

There is a few seconds of black before the start.

Thanks to Peter for the link!

flashed flowers #5

A green Cooks River wattles-I think acacia falcata based on the leave shape and the pattern of the flower pom-poms. It was in the bouquet from last week as well. The acacia longifolia have just about finished flowering, and the Sydney green wattle - acacia decurrens, are just about to come out. 
Gleaned from the Cooks River walk.