Photo Friday - Aquarium

Hello friends, Happy Friday to you. I hope you have had a great week! I hope you might checkout my previous post for my Mixed Media Monday art journal page!

Today I have some photos to share from a trip I took to the local aquarium. The Solitary Islands Aquarium. It's not huge, but not small either. Probably a dozen tanks, but there's still so much to see and lots of helpful knowledgeable staff that gave us lots of information, and even an hands on experience!

We got to touch a starfish, a sea urchin and a sea cucumber:

Sorry this one's a little blurry - The starfish was harder and more 'rocky' feeling than I thought it would be, while the sea urchin was as expected, spikey! The sea cucumber was soft and velvety!

One of my favourite things that we saw was a small snowflake eel;

I don't know what it is another these guys, but I just find them so cool. Maybe it's because they look like they just told a funny joke and are awaiting the response?


Another awesome thing we saw was a Marine Hermit Crab, different from the semi-land dwelling hermit crabs you might be used to, these type stay in the ocean, and amongst anemones.

This guy was enamoured with its reflection on the side of the tank, and one of the guides was telling us about how he places his favourite piece of round anemone on his shell, as part of its camouflage! When it changes shells, it will take off the anemone from this shell, and stick it onto it's new shell! Just like us moving home I guess.


 Yet another amazing creature was this beautiful Octopus:

He put on quite a show for us a few times - so I got video of him:



In one of the tanks there was a particularly beautiful starfish:

I just love the purple/blue with the deep red!

A funny thing was, each time we went to that particular tank this starfish would be in a different spot -  but we never actually saw it move! I kept waiting trying to witness it 'move' around! But it never did while I was watching! lol!

Here's a pic I got of it's underside when it moved to the front of the tank:

I love the detail on this shot.


Of course there were clownfish and anemones:

and some other fish, starfish and urchins - this urchin was called a lamington urchin, like the coconut covered choc-dipped cake!

You see the resemblance, right?

Kinda.

We saw so much, but I don't want to bombard you, these are just the highlights for me, so I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Here's one last pic of some of the coral and pretty anemones in one of the tanks:

Thanks for stopping by!

Photo Friday - Looking skyward

It's been a very long time since I have shared with you my photos - so I think I should start doing it again! This weeks theme is 'Looking Skyward'.

This week we had an amazing sunset here, it was talked about all over social media, and local news papers, websites and blogs! The sky was literally purple with pink fluffy clouds dissipating on the horizon! It was magical and unique - this photo even made it onto a local news site - so I was quite chuffed with that!

The clouds look like cotton candy, right?

A few days before, I was lucky enough to catch two rainbows, on two separate occasions.

Here's a pic of a tree at our house that bears orange mandarin fruit! I just loved the constrasting colours, the green of the leaves, with the pop of orange from the fruit and the bright blue sky. 

Here in Oz we are in the heart of winter, and although we don't have many deciduous trees here, there are some.

 I hope you liked my photos -  Thanks for stopping by! I'll leave you with a sunrise pic:

-AnnMaree.

Photo Friday - Beach Pics

Hello Friends - Long time no blog! Apologies for that. But I have some photos to share from some trips to the beach I have took recently, which I thought you might like to see:

This is the main beach down at The Jetty here, you can see it's looking across toward the Jetty boardwalk that you can walk out on, and the Marina behind that.  

On the right side there is a rockwall/breakwall:

As you can see there is a lot of neat plantlife growing along the beach here. They bloom with these beautiful pink flowers, which I discovered are called beach morning glory!

It's amazing to me that they can grow so vigorously is the sand with the salt spray of the ocean and full sun - you wouldn't think much plant life could handle such environment, let alone one that gets such beautiful flowers:

I so love going to the beach and communing with nature.

The small island you can see in this picture is called Muttonbird Island.

There's usually always some seagulls around...

Here are also two photos I got up around the Marina area, where on clear days you can see small and medium sized fish swimming about:

and last but not least, a neat boat, 

with a seabird trying to find a way to eat a rather large fish he found:

Close up of the seabird and his large fish:

I hope you liked seeing my seaside photos this Photo Friday, and I promise to go blog hopping through all of your awesome blogs this weekend! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Photo Friday - Outdoors

Hi Friends! Time to share some pics I've taken over the last few weeks with a Photo Friday post! Since I haven't done one in a while. Funnily enough, all of these pics are Outdoor ones! Who said I was agoraphobic and didn't get out much!? lol!

First some beach pics from my area: These were all taken on dull cloud covered days, where the only signs of life on the beach were some hungry seagulls.

Through the last few weeks we also have done some gardening work, and here is a caterpillar critter I came across, and had to get a pic of. Caught it in our Gardenia bush;

Google says this is a black gardenia bee hawk moth caterpillar, so will turn into a Moth. 

Here is a fly I was trying to get a close-up of - it's always fun to test the camera settings out, as long as your subject keeps still!

 

Here are some flowers from our Garden as well; Firstly Frangipani (Plumeria) flowers:

 

And some other flowers that come from 1 potted plant, which sprouts up with multiple colour flowers all from the one specimen. We believe it is called a purslane.

 Summer is fully underway here in Oz, with lots of hot humid weather, bright glaring sunshine, thunderstorms, and extreme heat and humdity across the country. We always keep our outdoor bird bath in our garden filled up, to help the wild birds beat the heat!

Here are just two visitors I've seen about lately, making use of the fresh water in the heat of the day; These are Magpie Larks, otherwise known as PeeWees. 

and last but not least -

 a pic that isn't very clear because I had to zoom it up even after I took it - but hopefully it gives you an idea! 

A blue-faced honey eater, which is a bird I hadn't ever seen before! It was very beautiful! A bright Blue face as the name suggests, and an almost golden olive green coated backm with black head, and white underbelly! Really impressive and the pic doesn't do it justice.

Here it was contorting his body about on a Bird of Paradise plant;

 So that's it for this Photo Friday, I hope you liked seeing my pics from around my home and town, Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Photo Friday on a Sunday - Ice Skating

Hey again friends, more busyness in the lead up to Christmas! So I missed Photo Friday, but here I am to share now. We were lucky enough to win tickets to see an Ice Skating show here in town, called Slice by Color Ice Australia. There were 10 skaters from all over the world! I was glad to attend, it was a brilliant show!

Here are some photos I got, stupid me just used my phone to take the pics, I should have brought my camera to get quality pics! But hopefully it gives you an idea.

They had lots of neat costumes!

and packed quite a lot into an hour show!

I really enjoyed these masked costumes with feathers and lots of tulle etc, and the dance performance they did with it;

and did lots of professional stunts

The 10 skaters were from Russia, Ukraine, France, Japan, and even a few from the USA and Australia! Wow! 

I really had a great time and enjoyed the show, and would love to see them again.

I hope you liked seeing my pics even though they were not the best quality!

Thanks for stopping by, and if I don't see you beforehand, 

Have yourself a joy-filled Christmas!!!

Love and Hugs from me to you xoxo