#015-365 Autumn

Sally had dance practice the other day, followed by a Doctors appointment, and I wanted to try and get any photos that were on offer. It was the day I got the bent tree and as I went into the Humpybong Creek Parklands, a small area in the centre of redcliffe, this fellow objected to my interrupting his meal.

It was a dull overcast part of the day and the shot was taken looking up into the tree, I suppose the Lorikeet would have been say 12 - 15 feet above my head, so it is fairly severly cropped, i just wanted to show that it isn't just the Golden Penda that they rely on for food. The penda is on the way out but these are just starting to bloom.

I toyed around with replacing the sky but Sally and I agree that due to the cropping I wasn't getting pleasing effects and as she said, the bird, the blooms and the leaves are so well delineated, why don't you just leave it as it is, and as you can see I did. It is a treat having these birds and their cousins the mountain Lowries hanging around. It is only at this time of year though that we see them in swarm numbers, and newcomers to this are usually complain about the noise, but when the birds return in numbers the ones who complained the year before are always as joyous as the rest of us.

The biggest problem with these birds is that sometimes when they find a really succulent tree they tend to feed quietly, and hard as it is to imagine they are hard to see. The trees they like have foliage that starts about head hieght, and you can be walking along contemplating important matters such as belly button fluff or the like, and 40 or 50 will erupt out of the tree, screaming objections at the top of their little lungs. Sally things it is just their normal startle reaction, I believe they are sadistic little swine that get top pleasure out of watching me roll on the ground clutching my chest, I'm sure I have heard them giggling, under their wings.