lookANDsee

With today being 35 C (95 F) and tomorrow being the first day of another season (depending on how you count these things), my thoughts turned to the coming months of summer and heat.

An audioBlog accompanies these photographs [4 Mbytes, 8 min 6 sec duration]. The audio commentary is also distributed as a podcast. You need to subscribe to my RSS2 feed towards the bottom of the right hand column on this page and you need to use aggregator software capable of utilising this. The photographs are also included within the .mp3 file. View them via Apple’s iTunes artwork function on a PC or Mac, for example.

The UNE campus looks pretty deserted already - but, lo, I spotted somebody heading for the Library.

Definite signs of no-life. The noticeboards have been picked clean.

So thoughts turn to summer and heat. How do I illustrate that during my lunchtime stroll? Ah, the advert with a surfer will do.

My minds eye wanted a summer flower in the foreground with other flowers gradually becoming out-of-focus towards the rear. Unfortunately I miscalculated and everything goes out-of-focus too quickly.

Ditto for this image. Learn from this error.

Still with summer and heat in mind, this sunset (albeit overly-cliche’ed) burns with the day’s thermal outpourings.

It’s not even summer and we’ve got our first bushfire (wildfire) in the area. It was 42 degC (107 F) in many parts of the state today with 44 degC (111 F) being the maximum. It was “only” 34 degC (93 F) here. I hope this doesn’t mean an exceptionally hot summer coming up!

An audioBlog accompanies these photographs [3.5 Mbytes, 6 min 41 sec duration]. The audio commentary is also distributed as a podcast. You need to subscribe to my RSS2 feed towards the bottom of the right hand column on this page and you need to use aggregator software capable of utilising this. The photographs are also included within the .mp3 file. View them via Apple’s iTunes artwork function on a PC or Mac, for example.

Ants work together to haul a beetle shell back to their nest.

There are two plants here. The green bush is a blackthorn; the flowers are sitting within it. Perhaps I’m just seeing survival of the fittest here. The flowers not protected from those wanting to eat it have already gone.

I saw this fire yesterday, from further away. Today it looks larger.

I went for a drive to get an idea of the general area in which the fire was burning.

The fire is about 25 km (15 miles) from us. No need to worry yet. It’s a concern, though, that bushfires have started so early in the season.

This stump looks like is sitting back, “arms” outstretched, enjoying the heat.