Paths

Hoop pines. Araucaria cunninghamii


Near the UQ Post office

Had to buy stamps for Christmas cards, today. And send a parcel. It was stinking hot and horrible by 9am when the Post office opened. And today was the day for buying boxes to store my stuff here over Christmas, so that meant I left the uni early. Fortunately, because by five there was a violent thunderstorm. Not the weather for carrying cardboard boxes.

The bright sunlight and dark shade on the UQ paths took my fancy as I headed off to work.

Sunlight

Sunlight through the grass

Taken a long while ago and has just one comment on it in Flickr, but I came across it while hunting for some other photos and I still think it is beautiful. And I also love that very slight morning moisture in the air, invisible, except that it captures the shafts of sunlight.

Putting up this photo reminded me that I had wanted to go out in the dark to get a photo of the Kigelia, whose buds I had noticed the other day. Such a beautiful flower and only visible by flashlight. It's so elegant, as it hangs, like a living candelabra.

On the way out, I disturbed the nesting lapwing, nesting for the second time this season in the very safe spot of the grassed college roundabout. I very evilly took a flash of it, and it made appropriate menacing cries. She/he (is it the female who keeps the eggs warm?) has been sitting there I think for almost a week already. Seems an awfully long time to go without food, and by sitting there it reminds you of the miserable weather it must endure, which you tend not to think about when birds are on the wing or sitting on a shady branch.


Kigelia pinnata. African sausage tree. UQ.