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Monday, 27 February 2023

52 x 2 photo project - February 2023

 Hi everyone, I hope you and yours are doing well. This week I am continuing sharing my 52 x 2 photo project with you. 2 photos per week for 52 weeks - one colur and one mono per week. Below are my February images. 


Week 1 - 1 February 2023 - colour - Outside some housing units I saw this little patch of gorgeous sunflowers. So I went back with my camera to photograph them.


Week 1 - 3 February 2023 - mono - a walk bridge over the water between the Leschenault Inlet and Koombana Bay in Bunbury. 


Week 2 - 6 February 2023 - Mono - Giant red tingle tree in the Valley of the Giants at Walpole in our Great Southern Region of Western Australia, taken during a little getaway. 


Week 2 - 7 February 2023 - Colour - Driving through the karri forest along the Karri Explorer drive in the Pemberton region during our little getaway. More about this later. 


Week 3 - 12 February 2023 - Colour - Banksia Baxteri - Baxter's Banksia. I bought a bunch of these gorgeous banksias in Balingup on the way home from our little getaway. You can see more if you click on the link. 


Week 3 - 15 February 2023 - Mono - playing with a little still life photography for a photogrpahy group topic. 


I ended up entering this one, and received a Gold award for it - a collection of my grandmother's mother's, and mother-in-laws old spoons etc, plus a few of my own. 


Week 4 - 20 February 2023 - Mono - the Safety Bay jetty near Rockingham


Week 4 - 21 February 2023 - Colour - On an overnight trip to Rockingham a couple of hours north of home, we took a ferry ride to Penguin Island and then a dolphin-sealion boat tour and penguin discovery talk. We hadn't been to Penguin Island since we were teenagers - it's changed a lot! More on this later! 


The Penguins are so cute! 

BONUS shot - We went to the South West Multicultural Festival in Bunbury on the 18 February. Always a fabulous afternoon of free multicultural entertainment. And a great opportunity to experience cultural dance. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the evening show. This is a vibrant Colombian dancer.  


And the beautiful Nicole from Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company in Bunbury. I've blogged about them many times before. Sadly I haven't danced this past year due to a foot problem. 


A few more pics from the Multicultural festival 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

My thoughts go to the people of the Ukraine at this time of the one year anniversary. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

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Monday, 13 February 2023

Banksia baxteri - Baxter's Banksia - Western Australia

 Hi everyone, I hope you and yours are doing well. 

Last week we took a short three night trip away to the forest regions a couple of hours south of where we live. More on that later. 

On our way home I bought a glorious bunch of Banksia baxteri - Baxter's Banksia - for a local shop in Balingup and grown by a local grower. Looking through my photos I am not sure I have seen these in full flower in the wild, though we have seen the heads starting to form nuts when we have been in the Fitzgerald National Park near Hopetoun in spring. 




It was named by Robert Brown after the collector, William Baxter, who gathered it in 1829 near King George Sound in Western Australia. 

A shrub up to 4 metres tall, it flowers along the south coast of Western Australia, during December to May, mainly January to March. 

The lemon coloured flowers grow on the end of the stems and the leaves form a sort of cup shape around the flower. 

It has the typical saw-tooth leaf of most banksias, though I learnt that the leaf of each Banksia type is slightly different, which is a handy identification tool. 

It grows from seed or cuttings and flowers within 3-4 years. I am thinking I need to grow one, they are so beautiful. 

Here are some spent examples we saw flowering in the Fitzgerald River National Park near Hopetoun and Tozers Bush Camp near Bremer Bay along the south coast last August. Your can see the nuts starting to form. 


That's it from me today. I hope you have enjoyed this little look at Baxters Banksia - Banksia baxteri 

Information from: Banksias - 2nd edition - by Kevin Collins, Kathy Collins & Alex George - Bloomings Books - and available from various booksellers 

You can learn a bit more about Banksias over on my blogpost - The iconic Australian Banksia
Banksias belong to the Proteaceae plant family. Characterised by their flower spikes and woody seed cones they range from ground hugging plants to 30 metre high trees. There are 78 known Banksias, 76 species in Australia, 62 of which are endemic to Western Australia, and 30 of these growing between Esperance and Walpole on our southern coast. In recent years the genus Dryandra has been incorporated into the genus Banksia, so the genus now totals 173 species.

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Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
   
Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.

My heart goes out to those suffering through war, earthquake, flooding, illness, poverty, starvation and other disasters throughout the world. 


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