Thursday 30 August 2012

winter and spring in one day

Yesterday we thought spring had come to Melbourne, and I was eager to get a nice walk in the sun today with Penny. But winter came back!

After the icy rain and hail, Penny and I set off for Willsmere Park in Kew. I was all rugged up, but of course Penny jumped  into the Yarra for her usual swim.


She waited in vain for me to make my way down the slippery bank to throw sticks into the water.

We saw lots of other creatures also enjoying the park. (Please excuse the low quality of some of the pictures, but I want to show you the variety of park visitors today.)

The kookaburra kept an eye on us but wasn't too worried.


We walked past clouds of insects - maybe midges? They ignored Penny and she ignored them, because she was too busy cleaning her nether parts.


The grass parrots didn't care about us at all, unless we got very close, in which case they shot up into the nearest tree, waited for us to get a few metres away and landed once more nearby.




The ducks, however, were more wary of us, perhaps because they are slower to take flight. Or maybe dogs tend to chase them more often.




It's surprising to realise all this beauty and peace is right alongside a noisy, busy road. Thank goodness for the big wall that keeps most of the noise away.


7 comments:

proud womon said...

what beautiful surroundings to go for a leisurely stroll with a friend such as penny with the added visual reward of so much wildlife...

Lassiter Chase and Benjamin said...

That's a nice post! Loved seeing those grass parrot birds. Amazing how close Penny is to them in that one picture.

Molly the Airedale said...

What a lovely day you had, Penny! We had sort of a summer/fall day here today. When we woke up it was 44 degrees and very chilly and it's almost 80 degrees now - a picture perfect day to us!

Love ya lots,
Mitch and Molly

Molly the Airedale said...

It took us 6 tries before we finally got word verification right. grrrrrrr

parlance said...

proud womon, I'm constantly reminded of how lucky I am to live in a place where I can have the amenities of a big city yet not lose sight of the natural world.

parlance said...

Lassie and Benjie, I'm glad you saw the birds in that photo. I knew it might be hard to spot them in the background, but I wanted to show that they aren't scared of dogs.

parlance said...

Mitch and Molly, I'm glad to hear the weather is being kind in your part of the country. (Rather scary in the south!)
I know what you mean about those annoying word verifications. I sometimes have to do it heaps of times too, nowadays.