Canopy

At the back of Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens.

Cane Toad Trap

Floating around in the beautiful back lake at Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens are a few of these things:

They're floating cane toadlet and tadpole traps! Apparently there are loads of cane toads breeding in this lake but these traps are proving to be very effective. They've only been in for a couple of months but they've already been able to remove 45,000 of them. They contain a pheromone lure derived from the toad that draws them in and then they can't get out. They need to manufacture a garden pond version.

A Subtle Shift

It seems that Brisbane is full of people that dislike boiling hot weather yet that's what we get here for at least 6 months of the year. The rest of the year it ranges from quite hot to pretty warm. Being from a much more changeable climate, it took me a few years to tune into Brisbane's seasons. We've just ticked over from 'boiling hot' into 'quite hot' (i.e. Autumn) in the last week or so. We don't get leaves turning orange and falling from the trees or cold gusty winds or anything quite so obvious. It's a barely detectable change in temperature - perhaps 2 degrees c. lower than a couple of weeks ago - with a drop in humidity. But it makes all the difference to important stuff like sleeping comfortably or being able to touch the steering wheel of your car without receiving third degree burns.

September Theme Day: Perspective

 This month's theme is "Perspective". I must admit I struggled with this one. In the end I decided on a camera-on-the-floor shot to give a bug's perspective of the City Botanical Gardens on Sunday afternoon just gone. I don't know the couple and don't know if they were aware I took their photo...I hope they don't mind!

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Floral Gems

Winter blooms amongst some bare branches at the Botanic Gardens in Mt. Coot-tha. If you are in Brisbane, it is such a great place to relax. It's open every day.... and it's completely FREE.

Putting a cat amongst the pigeons

Ibis birds with their guard down at the City Botanical Gardens.

Tinny Dipping

Jingle Jangle Morning

Toowoomba Morris Dancers (according to their shirts) wandering through the City Botanical Gardens yesterday. Perhaps they were heading to a "dance-off" with rival Brisbane gangs... the streets emptying, curtains and blinds twitching, sticks and accordions at 20 paces.

On The Inside The Sun Still Shines...

This is looking up at the sky from inside the tropical dome at the Botanical Gardens in Mt Coot-tha. You can be on the outside looking in here.

Pop quiz: The title of today's post is the first line of the chorus from the theme tune of which 1970s and 1980s Australian drama?

For more views and reviews of the sky throughout the blogosphere, visit Skywatch Friday.

Hibiscus

How inviting!

Posting magically continues despite me being on me hols. Back in late June...oooh that's very soon...

Indian Take Away

You see these trees in parks all over Brisbane.

This one here is in the City Botanical Gardens. I should have really got a person in it to get an idea of scale. The base is about 4 metres across.

Did you know....the trees are native to India. They have a peculiar way of growing where they send aerial roots downwards to support large branches. The roots eventually develop into a new trunk and so the tree spreads. One in India covers 1.5 hectares!

Posting magically continues despite me being on me hols. Back in late June.

Damselfly

I was surprised this lovely damselfly stood still for me while I fussed around with my camera getting it into the right mode and then angling it and pointing it up close. It was as cool as a cucumber. Definitely not a damsel in distress hawhaw

I'm going to look a bit silly if someone points out that this is infact a dragonfly.

Sacred Ibis

Ibises can be found all over Brisbane. They are supposed to be waders but here in Brizzy you often see them poking around public bins and bits of rubbish where their long bill comes in very handy.

Let Me Out, Jabba!

Brisbane was host to World Expo for 6 months in 1988 and there is evidence of that all over the city - especially artistically. It really was a huge deal when it was on.

This chair is from the sculpture exhibition which was held during the Expo and it is by UK artist Kenneth Armitage. Now it stands in the Fern House at the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens.

It sort of reminds me of that bit in The Empire Strikes Back with Han Solo in the carbonite.

QUACK!

Mum, dad and the kids off out for the day.

March Theme Day: Glass

Pinch punch first of the month! The last day of my hand series has had to be postponed a day while I get my first-of-the-month theme day picture in. It's open to all City Daily Photo participants and this month the theme is glass.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

You are looking at a section of the geodesic Tropical Dome at the Mt. Coot-tha Botanical Gardens. Strictly, it's not glass it's acrylic... but it looks like glass so I reckon that counts. Inside, the temperature and atmosphere are strictly controlled and it supports all sorts of exotic plant life including giant water-lillies.

Hanging Out, Looking Good

The Botanical Gardens in Mount Coot-tha are not just about plants. All sorts of wildlife are attracted there including this gorgeous looking spider. Click on the picture for a closer look - it really is pretty. This one, I'm reliably informed by Matthew Shaw at the inquiry centre of the Queensland Museum, is a Dome-web spider. Big fangs, painful bites initially but not harmful to humans after the initial chomp. I didn't really think about that when I was holding the camera millimetres from its head.

If you like spiders, here's another one I posted in January. If that's not enough for you, take a look at the spider section of the Queensland Museum website.