In the Misty Mountains...

 

Alligator Gorge -- Mount Remarkable -- in January, 2023. Fog was the last thing we expected at the height of summer, in what is the "gateway to the Flinders Ranges," but as you drove up, and up, higher into the national park, you drove into a wall of mist. Birds called through the mist, sounding hollow and strange ... butterflies wafted on moist, chill air that was barely moving. No hint of sunlight, or wind, while sound was oddly muted. The forest seemed primordial. Wouldn't have been surprised to see a dinosaur appear from the fog!

A Tail of Several Fairywrens

...and of course, Mrs. Fairywren, too!

The Colours of Summer, 2024

 

The Year of the January Green

This Never Happens. I'm not exaggerating. Am searching my memory for any other year in which the South Australian landscape was green as County Cork in January, ten days after the summer solstice ... and I can't remember any other time. 

This never happens. Except, apparently, in an El Nino year with some weird dipole values and a heck of a lot of monsoonal activity in the north and east. Put it all together, and you get a cool, sometimes misty, and rather wet summer for us, which translates directly into ... green. And I like it. A lot. These images were all captured after New Year, and as far apart as McLaren Vale and the Flinders Ranges. Green!!!

Magic Hour

On rare -- very rare! -- occasions, everything comes together and you can't do anything wrong. Later, you can't believe your luck, and it might not happen again for years, so ... cherish the experience! This was dawn in mid-spring (April 7th, in fact), 2021, just off the roadside in the larger area which is collectively known as Kuitpo. And I couldn't do anything wrong! It's almost three years later, and I'm still waiting for anything vaguely similar to come my way. I've arranged expeditions, made plans, and when we got into the field grey skies, or cloudless skies, or a complete lack of "atmospherics" made for plain, ordinary shoots that are best used as life's bookmarks: they remind you of a time and a place, and they jog your memory -- but that's their best function. 

Cleared for takeoff -- ready to fly!

 

The Monarch (Wanderer) butterflies seem to thrive on the Milkweed bush in the back garden right here at home. The bush is about six years old now -- kept well pruned -- and we counted upwards of 25 caterpillars before they started to chrysalis. Around 80% of the chrysalises seem to have hatched, and so far we haven't found any of the new-hatched Wanderers dead in the vicinity, so they really do seem to thrive here!