Kazza the Blank One

5.7.26

One Sunday afternoon we parked off Diddams Close and wandered around the peninsula.

Dusky moorhen

Some sort of paradalote...

White-plumed honeyeaters

Fairy wren

Stu's photo of a New Holland honeyeater

This was the first time I'd seen a spinebill.  We saw it in the trees, and then it flew over and landed right near us so I got to get a few quick snaps that turned out really well!

Brown-headed honeyeater

Cormorants..

Purple swamphen

Fairy wren changing plumage for spring

7.7.26

First actual test of the new lens.

Red wattlebird

Grey butcherbird

Red wattlebird

Magpie

Can you see the eastern rosella?  I took this photo on my phone while Stu had a play with my camera and lens.  

What about now?  (cropped)

And these are the (cropped) photos Stu got

18.7.26

A brief afternoon trip to the Watson Green Space.  Second test of the new lens.

Crested pigeon

Wood duck

Young king parrot

Young grey butcherbird

This happened so quickly I didn't have a chance to get a decent photo.  The depth of field was so shallow though that the miner was out of focus even though they are really close together.

1.8.26

Yeah I'm actually blogging the same day I took the photos....

We wandered around the rainforest walks to begin with.

This female bowerbird was pigging out on berries

These little white-browed scrubwrens were all over the place.  But they don't stay still.

Spinebill

Then we headed out into more open area.

I was excited to see these cinnamon-flanked silvereyes.. apparently they fly over from Tasmania for the winter!

Stu heard some gang gang cockatoos, and then we saw them fly into a tree in the distance.  I was amazed I was able to get this shot at all!

Stu spotted this male satin bowerbird (the only male we saw)

A pair of crimson rosellas were poking around this tree looking for a suitable nesting site.

There were heaps of female satin bowerbirds around

Red wattlebird

New England honeyeater

There were more spinebills as well

A new bird for me - yellow-faced honeyeater

19.7.26

Galah nesting

Buff rumped thornbill

Brownheaded honeyeater

White winged chough

By this point we hadn't really seen anything too exciting.  Then I noticed this little scarlet robin like right next to the path..!!

Scarlet robin (male)

His girlfriend was there too

Scarlet robins are super cooperative for photography.  They sit still on a branch and spy insects from there before swooping down.  

Great egret fly-by

We were heading back to the car when we thought we heard a stone bush curlew so we headed off to the north to where we heard it.  Never saw or heard it again though.

White-throated treecreeper

Brown thornbill

Thornbill of some sort

Wood duck (female)

Eastern rosella

26.7.26

Parked at the Frost Hollow end and went for a wander around.

Some sort of thornbill

Scarlet robin

Mystery bird

Another scarlet robin

Saw this on Daily Dose of Internet..  Kingwood..  40km north of Houston Texas..

Thanks Google Maps.

Funny stuff!

Oh hai.  Click to embiggen.

A few people asked me on the weekend how many times I'd done Christmas in July.  I couldn't actually remember, but guessed between 10-15.

Last night I went back through the blog to find out.  Turns out I've officially done it 11 times including this year, having to skip 2020 because of stoopid covid.  I did Christmas that year though so it kinda counts as 12 :)

2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020 (non-event); 2020 (Christmas)
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026

Sunday.  19th. Stu cooked another blue cheese cauliflower bake with brussels sprouts for dinner.

MacGyver, then Romy and Michele's high school reunion. I blame Dave2.  They don't have in the goofs in IMDB that while they're driving south into Tucson the sun is setting on their left. It would be setting on the right. So they were actually driving north in the shot. Also, dude says he has a Bell Ranger.. he actually has an Agusta A109C.

Monday.  Slept mostly okish. Fair bit of crap in the morning, including getting depressed about some possible upcoming changes, and Microsoft is making me want to rage retire. I did get some work done on some dashboards in the afternoon though. Leftovers for dinner, MacGyver, and getting South Coast trip photos online.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly okish. Distracted day not really achieving much. We did get the dev load balancers upgraded. We'll be doing a lot more of that in the future with the move to monthly patches. Leftovers for dinner, MacGyver, photo stuff.

Oh and Stu got this cool photo of a kangaroo while he was out birdwatching..

Wednesday.  After work had Ben/Sarah/Brae/Kit over for pizzas which was a lovely catchup.

Thursday.  Finished fixing the proxy to allow encrypted files without needing to disable inspection completely. Pretty decent drinks. KFC for dinner since we had pizza last night. The Emu Bank KFC really is quite trash.  Two out of the three pieces I got were small pieces, and all very dry.

Friday.  Got some more dashboards done.  Kievs for dinner (with actual vegetables since we didn't have freezer space to get more gems) and Black Mirror.

Saturday.  25th.  I still remember the date as Alexia Gallagher's birthday. One of those people from high school I wish I'd kept in contact with. I didn't know how to human back then. Took a while to get to sleep, then awake from five (I never sleep well on party days).

So got ready then headed to the markets to pickup the last of the groceries, the pork and some booze for raffle prizes. Then headed out to the club. Laid out everything for a photo then began the prep work.

Meanwhile, B&T and K&S setup the tables and decorations.

Two issues: I forgot to put the sweet potato on so it was 20 minutes late going on. Definitely not cooked enough when I took it out to put the turkeys in. Then when I got the turkeys out at the 3/4 point they weren't even hot - I could pick them up with my hands. So then had to cook everything for another 40 minutes or so. Slowest ovens in the world. It didn't harm the pork being cooked all that extra time, but the potato bakes got a bit overdone on the bottom. So the pork turned out to be among the best I've ever done. The crackling was all really good all over, and the meat was fall off the bone tender (John had trouble carving it). So unfortunately I've set the bar for myself too high now haha. So yeah all went well, although a late night as it would have taken too much effort to get up and go to bed haha.

Potato bakes before cooking

Very trying...

John carving some turkey

Best roast porks I think I've ever done

The potato bakes were probably a little over done

I forgot to get a photo of the winter salads so this is what was left of them.. and even most of this got eaten before the night was out.  I got hard goats cheese this year, which was easier to cut, but not as nice as the creamy stuff

Matching tshirts! (sort of)

Sunday.  Crap sleep funnily enough. 

Helped T&B tidy up the shed, then we came home.  Once we'd unpacked everything I went over to Ben and Sarah's to take some frozen stuff they won't be able to take with them (movers are coming tomorrow!).  

Didn't get a whole lot done during the day, too tired to concentrate on anything.

Lost another thumbnail this morning...

Went out for a walk around the Aranda bushlands in the afternoon.

Qantas 787-900 VH-ZNE Sydney to Perth

I still haven't tried out the new lens on the moon..