Spring in July?

Went for a long overdue walk this morning with my best mate. We were hoping to see a basking Tiger snake but unfortunately the weather wasn't kind to us with sun only coming out right at the end of the walk. It was a good opportunity though to reflect and marvel at natures work even on the edges of some pretty degraded country. Its seems as though things are happening earlier to me, almost like spring is starting to creep up on us even though its the middle of winter. A week ago I had a two metre Carpet Python crossing my driveway during the day and later on the same day a huge Carpet was killed crossing a side road with a low speed limit and good vision not far from our place. Congratulations to the areshole responsible for that one, it would had to have been intentional. We don't expect these animals to be moving about for about another six weeks or so and the wildflowers today were abundant as well. I don't profess to know much about plants so they may well be flowering at their normal time but it just seemed a bit odd to me.

Callistemon in flower

A stunning Banksia flower. It looked black from a distance but the green tips were awesome.

Three stages of a Hakea - flower

Seed Pods

Spent seed pods

It was pretty damp and there were a few Sundew carnivorous plants on the tracks.

Native Iris were abundant.

Spent seed heads of the Grass Tree or Kangaroo Tail

Spiders web

A Coral fern apparently from an ancient genera that pre dates modern ferns and has is origins probably before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

Fungi were not common however and these guys were tiny.

A flowering gum which was part of a re-vegetation planting and probably isn't native to the area.

Spent Wattle seed pods. Their amazing shape and texture caught my eye.

A couple of night sky shots from my backyard over the past few nights.

Some interesting footprints from the muddy tracks today. The first wasn't large and could have been either a fox or a dingo. The second is a Kangaroo or Wallaby. The third is a huge dog print and the last was pretty big but very different from any of the others.

Finally something that I am supposed to be writing about. A common old Garden Skink. There were quite a few of these and possibly some Grass Skinks as well along the tracks today but they were extremely wary which is a little unusual and kept their distance as you can tell from the quality of the photograph. Both Litoria fallax and Crinia tinnula were calling today as well but unfortunately we didn't get to see a single frog nor our target species the Eastern Tiger Snake.

Thanks again for reading, sorry for the lack of reptile and amphibian information and photographs, hopefully that will change in the very near future.

Mike.