Off Topic Nikon P900/1000

Beautiful moon pic Adrian
plus a great party in the backyard


cheers moredeep

Yeah they enjoy themselves until the Currawongs arrive and then the party turns into a "Free For All" war zone.
The currawong's are very aggressive towards any other bird that comes into the yard except for one very chunky magpie that seems to think he owns the entire neighbourhood. He only goes for the currawong's

Harry & Meghan have dropped in for a visit. They arrived in August as usual for a short stop over and then disappeared until this morning. Their visits are becoming briefer.
I thought Meghan might have left Harry but looks like they are back together again.

https://aussiebirdcount.org.au/

It's on again.
It's a bit frustrating though, every time you start the count the birds disappear

cheers moredeep

Let me inside you wacker it's pissin down out here.

Took this pic on 24 Jan 22


Took this one tonight 02 Jan 24

Both pics facing East from my front yard.and at similar times. Seems to me that the weather is running like clockwork.

Patiently waiting for breakfast this morning.

Like wise,this season has been exceptional for bird life in our back yard.
Hordes of cockies, rosellas ,wrens, nesting finches, musk and rainbow lorikeets even the odd heron along with the usual local birds.
Fruit bats are being seen here now too.
Getting to our fruit before our feathery friends is a challenge



cheers moredeep

Sounds like you have got a open plain bird zoo.
 Tis good to have them in the back yard instead of snakes, crocodiles & pythons Aye.
A few of the big cockies are becoming a bit too tame in my yard and the two in this pic happily follow me around the yard when I am raking the leaves.
I might have to ease of on the feeding
  My wife is not too keen on them as they do a pretty fair job of pruning some of our bushes and small potted  trees.

We have a nesting pardalote; so we are the proud grandparents of squeaking babies under our house.
As to the fruit bats they've scared the bejesus out of me a few times at night and not to mention megabat droppings that have hit the house and windows [blood plums:face: ]


cheers moredeep

[quote="adrian ss"]New visitor to our back yard arrived this arvo,
Gang Gang Cockatoos.
Very chilled out birds showing complete nonplus to our approach to within 1/2 a mtr.
Unusual to see them here at this time of the year. Maybe the fires have chased them here





17/01/24

Loss of older, hollow trees and loss of feeding habitat across south-eastern Australia through land clearing has led to a significant reduction in the numbers of this cockatoo in recent years. As a result, the gang-gang is now listed as vulnerable in New South Wales. It is protected as a vulnerable species under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW). This protection status as a threatened species makes it a Tier 1 criminal offence for a person or corporation to knowingly damage the bird's habitat.Damage is defined to include "damage caused by removing any part of the habitat". Habitat is defined to include "an area periodically or occasionally occupied by a species".

In July 2021, an Australian Department of the Environment and Energy spokesperson stated the population has declined by approximately 69% in the last three generations, or 21 years and in addition to this decline, the species has suffered direct mortality and habitat loss during the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. Between 28 and 36 per cent of the species' distribution was impacted by the fires. As a result, it is set to be listed as endangered under the threatened fauna of Australia.

I have not seen any of these birds since taking this photo on Jan 8, 2020.

That's very cool

Speaking of "very Cool"
Did you know?
The lowest air temperature record, the lowest reliably measured temperature on Antarctica was set on 21 July 1983, when a temperature of −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) was observed at Vostok Station. For comparison, this is 10.7 °C (19.3 °F) colder than subliming dry ice (at sea level pressure). The elevation of the location is 3,488 meters (11,444 feet).

Satellite measurements have identified even lower ground temperatures, with −93.2 °C (−135.8 °F) having been observed at the cloud-free East Antarctic Plateau on 10 August 2010.

Even their vodka would have frozen at that temp unless they were drinking pure ethanol

stinking hot today and this maggie decided that in the the sprinkler spray was a good place to be.

Anybody know the ID of this Flutter By?
It is 9cm across the wing tips


Found it!!
Papilio ambrax,

the Ambrax butterfly, is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae. It is found in Queensland, Australia, as well as the Aru Islands, Papua, and Papua New Guinea.
The wingspan is 90–100 mm. Wikipedia
Scientific name: Papilio ambrax

Seems it is  a long way from home in my back yard at approx 2,500 km from Cairns??....As the Crow Flies

This might help.

....LINK....

That is the one.
Maybe got blown down here with the wind and rain that has been pummeling QLD lately.
If it can avoid the Currawongs and Indian Mina's here in Canberra it might survive for a while.
With such an erratic flying style it beats me how it managed the trip....Maybe had a few rest stopovers

The sun is active at the moment with a number of large- ish sunspots.

The large cluster is designated AR3615 and it has been hurling some significant CME  (Cosmic Mass Ejection) at the Earth. This triggered  some Southern Light displays as all of those protons and stuff crashed into the southern upper atmosphere.  The radiation levels inside high altitude aircraft flying in the region may have been elevated slightly.






24 hrs later

AR3615 has burped out another CME on the 28/03/2024.
So it is likely that there will be some Southern Lights display tonight visible from the Vic coast shore line all the way to Perth. Worth having a look see from sunset on-wards just in case a photo op pops up.

This might help you see it.
https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/travel/victoria/where-to-see-aurora-australis-southern-lights.html

during periods of strong solar activity, (Past few days) it’s possible to see the Aurora Australis across southern Australia (including Victoria) and as far north as Canberra, Sydney and even southern Queensland.

Had a look see last night but there has been some fires in the brindabella's which have turned the sky a dirty brown out to the South to SW washing out any possible Southern Light displays.

same down here

Here is a pic of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks & Andromeda .
These two can been see in the Northern Hem amid the Northern light display. The past week stirred up some good auora's.
    In this pic I cannot see any foreground stars between the galaxy and the comet which I guess  means that Andromeda is floating in almost empty space even tho it seems to be surrounded by a myriad of stars.



There are approx 675 stars at the edge of the Milky Way, between the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way. Andromeda is 2.5 million Light Years from us, therefore there is bugger all stars between us and Andromeda and bugger all  stars between Andromeda and the back ground star field........ There is a whole lot of nothing out there folks, relative to our size.  Space is nothing at all like it appears to be??

mind boggling