Category: Nature

I went hunting for spring flowers and blossoms this afternoon, just up to five or six blocks around my house.
All I know is that the gorgeous pink one is a camellia, and the bright yellow one, a dandelion weed flower.

I found these daffodils in Volunteer Park today.

Below is a cute picture of two abandoned bear cubs found on Dept. of Natural Resources-managed land.

The tweet does not give the location where they were found, and it could have been anywhere except in central Washington State.

A hummingbird visited my backyard today, attracted by my cold-hardy mahonia’s bright yellow flowers.
(There was a little more snow on the ground on Monday morning, but not enough to make too much trouble on the city’s streets).

Alright .. one more picture of the pink and gray cockatoo called the galah.
This one was in an eucalyptus by the tennis courts here in Bull Creek.
It is steadying itself, while sharpening its beak on the hard bark of the tree trunk.

This beautiful eucalyptus tree is by the tennis courts here in Bull Creek.
I am still trying to identify the specific name of it. The term ‘eucalypt’ includes some 900 species in the three genera Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.
And where is its bark?

In almost all types of eucalyptus, the bark dies every year. It comes off in flakes, curls or long strips. This might be the tree’s way of shedding harmful mosses, lichens, fungi and parasites that live on the bark.

Here are the pink and grey cockatoos that I had mentioned in the post of Thursday, Dec 19.

Here is the New Holland honeyeater.
They are found throughout southern Australia.
I found a picture of one on the wall at the Stockland shopping center, and the real McCoy in the Ron Carroll Reserve green space.

I ran into a flock of western corellas (Cacatua pastinator) across from the little shopping center here in Bull Creek. The white cockatoos were eating the seeds of a cypress bush and did not mind me too much, as I came closer to them to take some pictures.

By some estimates the number of these birds have increased tenfold in the greater Perth area over the last 20 years. The city council is mulling how to control their numbers, and has called on bird lovers to refrain from feeding them, as a start.

 

I found this western wattlebird (Anthochaera lunulata) in the Ron Carroll Reserve, a green space here in suburban Perth.
The bird is a large honeyeater, long and slender, with dark grey-brown upper-parts.
There are pale streaks and spots on the neck, chest and belly.
They have ‘brush-tipped’ tongues, with which they eat nectar from flowers. They do eat insects as well.

I finally bought the lioness figure at the Red Balloon toy store nearby, to add to my animal collection.

When it comes to lions, it is almost exclusively the females that go hunting. Their prey are usually faster than they are, so they have to first creep up to a close distance from different sides and then sprint towards their prey. Then when the prey had been caught, the males are always the first ones to eat.

The neighborhood’s pair of Steller’s jays visited my backyard this afternoon.