Sweet F*** all

Top of a bollard, Broulee, NSW, Australia.

Señor Pantalons, the juvenile King Parrot

Taken at the holiday house in Broulee.


Señor Pantalons. I'll explain later.


A little birdy sitting in the tree
Nomming berries quietly
Señor Pantalons is he
Señor Pantalons


Señor Pantalons is a juvenile King Parrot. Eventually he will be all red with green wings. For now he's just got red 'pants' hence my nick name for him. He's a lot less wary of humans than the other birds visiting (crimson rosellas adult and juvenile, bower bird female and juvenile, little wattlebird) hence I have been able to pop a few good shots of 'him'


It's tricky capturing those pants with the camera.



An adult King Parrot who was accompanying Señor Pantalons.


A juvenile Crimson Rosella.

Royal Albatross - partial skull

At Broulee, NSW, Australia I found a partial marine bird skull which I hypothesised to be that of an albatross. I took it back down to the seashore to take some photographs of it.


The Ancient One
digital image

Using the Seabird Osteology site, I have since identified it as the skull of a Southern Royal Albatross. According to the bird field guide I have to hand there are two races of these species: Diomedea epomophora is endangered and the other, dark winged , Diomedea sanfordi is vulnerable. Without having seen a full corpse with feathers I can't be sure which one it is. It is a little smaller than the depicted specimen - beak is about 14cm - so I'm guessing it could be a female or going by the slight difference in eye socket shape, a juvenile.


Time eroded
digital image

I certainly didn't expect to find a piece of endangered bird on the beach and had to make sure it wasn't something more common like the comorants seen in the area. As it turns out, all Australian species of albatross are either endangered or vulnerable. It's not something you want to know but at least now I'm a little more informed on the subject, and thus so are you.

My Meerkat Experience at Mogo Zoo

From J: the best Christmas present EVER :) Mogo Zoo, NSW, Australia offers various Animal Encounters, one of which is a Meerkat Experience. All of these photographs and the short clip were taken by zoo keeper Bek/c while I enjoyed feeding my favourite little peeps. Bek/c took heaps of photos for me so I'm only including some.




[sings]Getting to knooooow you,
getting to feed you stuff from a bucket.



The dominant meerkat of the five boys spent most of the time with his head in the bucket except when meal worms were brought out...




... and put on my head, shoulder and lap.


It didn't hurt, but it took a bit of getting used to having this little critter run his paws and claws through my hair. Their claws are very long but dulled by digging and foraging.


Call me back later, I'm feeding the meerkats!


My favourite photo of us.


Their fur is a not as soft as a cat's but not as coarse as some adult dogs. Afterwards my hands smelt spicy and earthy - sort of like curry powder or maybe tumeric.


Keeper Bek/c said this was the cutest pic she had ever taken of this little chap. He is the oldest meerkat of the five, at nine years old. He was once the head male. Not anymore, he sat apart while the others did their thing. So sweet though as you can see by this pic.


I don't remember his name but here he is again...


...and here too.


The four amigos sun bake in a line. Apparently the keeper had never seen them lying in a line like that before.



Please M'am, may I have some more?

Precious little pygmy marmosets

At Mogo Zoo we were admiring the agility and cuteness of the pygmy marmosets. A boy of about 8 walks by and excitedly asks his older brother of about 12
"Can we order one of those?!"
"Yeah sure - they're six million dollars!"

Happy Hedgehog hovering habove hundercarriage whipes.

At Tullamarine airport, ladies' toilet near large cargo deposit area, just above toilet paper dispenser in 2nd or 3rd cubicle on left ... I found the above and couldn't help myself but add to it (with water based pen of course).

Honesty is the best policy...

At Moruya Saturday Market. Small child to presumably his dad.
"Where's Mum?"
"I dunno... Probably ran away 'cause you're so annoying."

Lose Xkg with this weird old trickery...

In my adverts column on FaceBook the ubiquitus diet ad read 'Dr Oz - Lose 6kg/week' and something about this 'using this weird trick' nothing odd about that. When I go to do my regular 'hide all by this advertiser' the advertiser listed for this ad is 'Mochi Ice creams'. The ad I hid before that was for a dieting whatever but the advertiser had the word Veterinary within the company name. Weird or what?

Also has anyone every clicked on one fo these ads because they thought it looked good? No, really? These ads don't work? Who would have thought it...