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 - 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 - OH Deer!

Just a quick post so you know I haven't dropped off the face on the Earth. lol. I've been busying myself here, and have had a nice week. I hope you all have had a lovely week, as well!

 Today we were lucky enough to see some of Santa's Reindeer in our city centre;

Now I'm not sure if these are actual Reindeer, or just common deer? Or some other breed of deer, perhaps my English or American friends who have these beautiful animals native in their country can tell me. But I do know they are Santas, right? :-p lol!!! 

They were brilliant to see, only 4 of them, only 1 with antlers. 

They had such beautiful faces and soulful eyes.

 Such a joy to see here in my little city, on the coast of Australia.

I hope you enjoyed seeing them, Thanks for stopping by!

Photo Friday - Bird Watching and More

Hello Friends, Thank You for the warm helpful comments on my previous post. It has truly helped and I appreciate it greatly! I'm just plogging along here, busying myself each day. This weekend is still going to be a tough one, but I will get through it.

I have still been taking some pics, so I figured I would share some here for a post...

With it being summer here, there have already been many bushfires burning across the country, and some still do! There is one burning about an hour away from us, out of town. Which Yesterday made for a very smokey smoggy haze over our town! It was pretty bad, and I had a sore throat from it, and was coughing. As were my parents. Can you imagine how bad it would be closer to the fires? When we are an hour away and we got just whatever the wind blew through? Just awful! 

Here is a photo of just up the road from our house, we live in a mountainous area, with lots of hills and valleys, here is a view down the valley looking across to some hills and mountains, where there is a small farm and house... it is usually beautiful and clear to look out at! But all you could see was the smoke;

 

Thankfully the smoke cleared yesterday afternoon.

With the season warming up, we're noticing lots of creepy crawleys about! Some not so nice (like spiders!) but some that are nice to see. We have noticed many Lady Bugs or Lady Beetles about the place lately...  When I picked some Frangipani (Plumeria) flowers, and some Gardenia's from our garden, there was a Lady Beetle on them, which made for some pretty photos:

 I just love ladybugs so much! When I was a little girl I remember often looking for them in our hedge that surrounded the childhood home, and often collecting them in a jar to watch for a little while, which I always released them back within an hour.. But I will never forget once I had a few collected in my bug jar, and came inside to show Mum, and fell over on the hard laundry tile... and yep, you guessed it! The jar broke and we had a dozen or more ladybugs loose, and we even had a few about the house for a few days after that, as well! LOL!!! 

Also through the week me and mum did a bit of shopping in the big Plaza Mall we have here, and also had a snack in the food court... What I really love about the food court is the fountain in the middle of it, with some wonderful statues of Brolga's an Australian Crane bird:

 

 

Speaking of birds, we have had more feathered visitors in our yard - 

This time some gorgeous Indian Myna Birds:

 

They were very inquisitive, even sitting on the window ledge where I was taking photos of them out of my window (that's why there's a bit of blur/ripple effect in these pics)

I just loved their beautiful yellow eye mask!

 and here is another beautiful specimen which is called a speckled drongo...

 

His wings really were a really shimmery green/blue, and his eyes were a piercing dark red, very stunning to see as he groomed himself on our fence!

I'm really loving that we are getting so much bird life about this year! We added in some native trees and a bird bath, plus not having the dog anymore (RIP) has probably also helped that.

Here is a type of bird that we see every day, just a common spotted dove, or sometimes called a pigeon... They are quite kind of coy, but make the cutest coo-coo sound, and bob their heads when they are trying to woo a lady friend ;-) 

Here is a pic of a Willy-Wag-Tail on our clothesline, too;

I hope you didn't mind seeing my bird pics, I do so love birds and especially love seeing the native wild ones popping in our yard!

I'll leave you with two arty pics I took, and wish you a grand weekend, and many thanks for stopping by and all your lovely comments and friendship!