In the warm afternoon sun yesterday this sparrow sat on the fence hoping I would throw out some seed.
After I had finished taking photos I did throw handfuls of birdseed out for the little birds. They deserve some help in this bitter weather that has returned today.
Strange billowing thick grey clouds out towards the west, tipped with the last rays of sunshine. Finally we have had a sunny, warmer day. It has been very welcome.
After relentless gales from the northwest we were blessed today with a cool, gentle southerly wind change. That brought us the astounding sound of silence from the noise of the winds, stillness to be outdoors and enjoy it, and warmth from the sunshine.
Jazz made the best of the conditions as he stretched to soak up the prevailing goodness.
When the spring winds died later in the afternoon yesterday we headed to Aotea Lagoon for a walk and to enjoy the surroundings there.
I particularly enjoyed the dappling of the sun on water in the larger of the two duck ponds.
The ducks were dabbling.
This gull was content to allow me to dawdle very close to his/her perch.
And other gulls were dawdling in a group near the main Lagoon.
Sun, late afternoon light, water, nature….what could be better on a late Sunday afternoon in September.
Early morning sun begins to touch the tall trees in the garden.
I am reading Howard Zehr’s book “The Little Book of Contemplative Photography” and he mentions that “watchfulness” can be a useful approach to receiving images that you might like to photograph.
On a lovely sun-soaked afternoon yesterday I adopted a “watchful” approach and here is what caught my eye in the garden.
First daffodil emerging
Glowing
Quintessence
With the winter sun weakening and shining from lower angles in the sky there are patterns in the garden that only appear at this time of the year.
And indoors there are winter light patterns too.
The ash and smoke from the devastating Australian bushfires drifts to New Zealand’s atmosphere on the prevailing north westerly winds. We have had plenty of those this summer.
Any sunshine this morning, long after dawn, is a strange orangey red. The day is very cloudy and cool but the sky looks like this when the sun can shine through.
The pattern of rainy weather continues on here. But in a small gap between weather systems, the sun came out and the sky was blue. Rain is falling again as I type this. The garden is not thirsty.
The magnolia has burst forth with more flowers.
The gales of the past day or so plus the rainy weather have damaged some of the flowers. The tree is nearly 40 years old and was planted by a previous owner so I have no idea of the type of magnolia it is.
It hunkers down by a fence and is protected by an ever green magnolia in our neighbour’s garden plus the surprising tall Japanese Maple nearby.
The magnolia’s spread is wide and reasonably high.
Here is my best effort at capturing it while the sun shone on me and the light was welcomingly bright.
The weather forecast is for a thunderstorm and hail today and if hail falls the flowers will really suffer. An out of the blue opportunity was too good to miss with the camera.
However no thunder and no hail arrived. The magnolia has enjoyed that and so have all the humans:-)
ordinarygoodness 