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The Changing Seasons – April 2020

April 2020 (Autumn in Australia) — Canberra Walks Off The Covid-19 Crisis.

Never have so many Canberrans taken to the streets.  Not to protest, but to walk.

It rained.  The sun shone.  An urban forest revived after drought; too late for some trees.  Spring migrants like the Caper White butterfly feasted on autumn weeds.  Little dumpies (Diplodium truncatum) emerged from leaf litter to greet the day and would-be pollinators.  And the people came in their hundreds to traipse over woodland and reserve, grateful for the reprieve from summer’s hell, as they waited for the virus nightmare to end. Read more

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Home Art

Are you being driven to abstraction by home confinement?  What do you do if you have the concentration span of a gnat?  I have been fiddling around with photo editing and walking.  More on the walking part later, but for now, what?  Oh yes, photo editing.  Home has become a canvas for my creative endeavours.  Hope you like black and white. Read more

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Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge #6

Welcome to Week 6 of my Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge.  Corvids are birds belonging to the Corvidae family, encompassing ravens, crows, magpies, jays and nutcrackers.  So peruse your corvid photo, poetry, music and story archives and join the challenge.

You can participate in the Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge by creating a pingback to this post (my pingback approval settings are set up for manual approval, so it may take a little while for your pingback to appear) and/or by leaving a hyperlink to your submission in the comments.   Tag your post Corvid-2020 or C20WC.  I really do hope you will join in.

What else can I say?  The Common Raven (Corvus corax) of the Northern Hemisphere is bigger than the Australian raven (Corvus coronoides).  What they have in common though is that they are both very mischievous.  Here’s Fable (Corvus corax).  She looks like trouble if you ask me.  Check her out.  Please note that this is not my video.

Mwa, mwa.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

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Take A Walk On The Re-Wild Side

Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, my ambition gets the better of me.   I’ve always wanted to make a mosaic of a red-browed finch.  I tried, but it did not go well.  Perhaps I’m being too much of a perfectionist.  The finished product is a bit ragged because I de-constructed it a couple of times in a manner that was a touch violent.  Still, I got control of myself and made what repairs I could.  Read more

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The Big T

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

It shouldn’t be that hard, especially “in these difficult [Covid-19] times”.  Helping each other.  Working side by side.  It’s what we do, right?  For everyone?  You know.  The big T.  Together.

Help me out here.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

Ragtag Daily Prompt — Normal.

 

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The Early Bird

I’m not a morning (photography) person.  In the morning, I am usually pretending to be too busy doing stuff to be wasting my time taking photos.  So consequently when I checked my photo archive for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge — Morning, my morning photos were few and far between.  I normally start to take a few photos around midday, you know, to further avoid actually doing anything “productive”.  My photography tempo picks up early afternoon, peaking between 3.30pm and sunset.  That’s because by 3.30pm, I’ve convinced myself that it is now too late to actually do anything concrete, for example, like starting work on whatever art project I happen to be contemplating at the time.  Read more

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Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge #5

Welcome to Week 5 of my Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge.  Corvids are birds belonging to the Corvidae family, encompassing ravens, crows, magpies, jays and nutcrackers.  So check out your corvid photo, poetry, music and story archives and join the challenge.

Over 170,000 people have died from Covid-19 since December 2019, and yet, I can still enjoy this little corvid challenge.  There’s something about minutely concentrating on one thing and just one thing that helps me keep my sanity.  It is a triumph of bravado over pessimism.  So are you ready?  Let’s go corvid-hunting. Read more

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Waiting Or Anticipating?

A black hat perspective.  Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

After a buoyant few days, I’ve stopped to think.  It is necessary, albeit depressing, but it helps me get things weirdly acceptable in my head.  I still haven’t heard anything definitive about how much of the new corona virus, Australia, is prepared to live with.   Some apparently.  However, no-one in authority is yet prepared to be upfront about the costs of this suppression strategy.  It is one thing to be reassured that there will be a (net?) benefit, but without being specific about what is being traded off — who and what is to be sacrificed — how can the community have ownership of any virus-related actions and outcomes? Read more

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Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge #4

Welcome to Week 4 of my Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge.  Corvids are birds belonging to the Corvidae family, encompassing ravens, crows, magpies, jays and nutcrackers.  So check out your corvid photo, poetry, music and story archives and join the challenge.

Corvid-spotting is as good a game as any at the moment.  I’m not one for house cleaning or Netflix watching during this Covid-19 killing time.  Corvid-spotting is tricky because the raven is the only corvid in my village and it has been proving rather elusive.  I confess that sometimes when I am feeling rather down, I’ve been inclined to abandon this challenge, but I know you are all counting on it (like not) so I have to keep trying.  Trying to keep living, trying to keep my spirits up, etc, etc, is the story of my life at the moment; just keep going until I can’t go on anymore.  Maybe that’s your story too? Read more

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Bird Friend

My arm was twisted last year (not very hard) to make a mosaic for a blogger friend.  My friend’s property was burnt in Australia’s huge summer bush fires.  Fortunately, his house survived.  Some of my readers may know Brian from Bushboys World.  One of Brian’s favourite little birds is the Eastern Yellow Robin.  So that was the first mosaic that I made for him.  I’ve also made a second one of a Red-Browed Finch.  I had to make two mosaics otherwise the first one would be lonely.  Unfortunately I attacked the second with a sharp knife today because I didn’t like the shape of its head.  Not that anyone would have noticed the problem because it is not as though people will be looking at it close-up once its hung.  I would have known though, so it met its fate.  I’ll need to fix it, then I can share it with you.  Stand by for that one. Read more