Mosaic Monday ... Where's All The Colour?

If you visited my place right now you'd be thinking 'The landscape looks so drab and dreary!  This can't be the tropics!!!  Where's all that bright, in-your-face tropical colour?'.

You'd be right!  We're smack bang in the middle of our dry season here, having had only 4 mm of rain in four and a half months.  That 4 mms mostly fell in April and with less than 1 mm falling in May.  So after months without decent rainfall the place is looking fairly dry.  There's a whole lot of brown (dead!) grass not only in our yard but in the surrounding bushland as well.  This is the dry tropics.

The vistas shots at this time of year would not be great choices for travel brochures photos!  I think a caption for the wallaby shot might be "Yeah, mate, this is why we call the place 'Brownsville'!  We're exhausted trying to find decent food!  Thinking we might have to migrate!"

Of course, while there's a definite lack of rainfall, there are glorious bright sunny skies, lovely cool conditions and very low humidity.  The winter is very mild here and, as if to make up for this dry looking landscape, the winter sunrises have been spectacular.  That's where we see all the colour these days.

So, if you do drop by, I'll make sure to wake you up nice and early to catch the colour before it disappears!  At least that is something to see.

For lots of terrific Mosaic Monday posts, visit our host Mary at Little Red House

Flower Flaunt On Friday ... Our Last Month Of Winter

Here it is, our last month of Winter.  The wonderful sunny, mild weather continues and the memory of the last summer is now very distant.  We had a very light shower of rain overnight but it didn't do much for the garden.
These very, very occasional showers of rain are typical of our 'dry' season ... they barely touch the ground!  We don't really count them at all as their only worth is that they are refreshing and there's that faint smell of rain in the air.

Around my semi-rural neighbourhood, in people's yards and in the surrounding bushland, one of my favourite native winter bloomers is putting on a terrific display right now.  These are the blooms of our native Silk Cotton Tree ... Bombax ceipa leiocarpum.

Now to the blooms at my place.  There's a few little sprays on my two dwarf variegated Bougainvilleas.

My gorgeous Dietes bicolor continues to throw out flowers every now and then.

The Dianthera nodosa or Pink Lady Fingers is showing its last blooms at the moment.

The all-year-round blooming Hibiscus rosa-sinensis shrubs continue doing their thing.

The Russelias never stop flowering.

The Euphorbia pulcherrimas continue their winter show.

Now a little video clip to show some of the other blooms around the place today.


That's a quick run down on the blooms here in my north-eastern corner of Australia for this first week of our last winter month and mid 'dry' season.

For lots of fabulous Friday Flower Flaunt posts, visit Tootsie at Tootsie Time

Wildlife On Wednesday ... Lizard On The Run.

I've written a post about this fantastic looking creature before and I included loads of facts about the Varanus varius.  You can catch up with that post here ... The Lace Monitor Lizard (Varanus varius).  The Lace Monitor Lizard or Tree Goanna is one of our country's largest lizards and is such a striking looking thing.

I find them just fascinating as they have the most incredible markings all over their body.  It's always a joy to spot one lumbering around my place covered in those fantastic white spots, lacy blotches and bands.

Well, just the other day I could hear some loud screeching and squawking from a little flock of Blue-Faced Honeyeaters.  They are fairly noisy birds when they get together, but I began to notice there was quite a note of urgency in their calls.  That's when I twigged there might be something happening on the other side of our yard, so I grabbed my camera and headed over that way.

Sure enough I spotted a Lace Monitor scarpering across the yard being hounded by the flock of Honeyeaters.  Now I know Lace Monitors actively forage for nesting birds' eggs and perhaps that was the problem. It may have got too close to one of the Honeyeater's nests and the alarm went out.

It's rather funny seeing one of the largest lizards in the world being chased away by a flock of birds, but that's definitely the impression I got as I watched the action unfold.  The Lace Monitor kept looking back to see where the birds were.

I had the chance to capture a little of this action, so it's over to the video clip.

 Do you have any wonderful wicked looking wildlife visiting your garden? 

Mosaic Monday ... Beginning Of The End.

The first day of August heralds the beginning of the end of Winter for us.  Yes, August is the last Winter month here in Oz. 

It's been simply fantastic weather for getting out into the garden and there have been quite a few chores for me to do around my place.  The past weekend was jammed pack with gardening jobs.  Lots of weeding and trimming.  Digging over and digging in the mulch in the new garden bed.  Finding some lovely surprises ... like blooms on my previously hidden and forgotten Hibiscus.

Now if you look closely, you'll see something draped over my gardening shears.  While I was busy chopping off bits and pieces in the front garden bed, I found a little snake skin that had been shed recently.  Obviously it's from a little baby snake that slithered off to grow bigger and bigger.  Luckily I didn't notice the snake hanging about in the overgrown mess in that front garden bed, although it may have been there lurking in the underplanting.

There were other little creatures I noticed while out and about in my garden on this winter weekend. 
Some were slithery critters ...

... like the little garden lizard and the slightly larger Lace Monitor with its distinctive patterning.

Some were winged creatures ....

... like the unknown creature at the top, the Blue-Banded Bee on the left and the Fungus-eating Ladybird on the right.

Of course, whilst I was certainly very busy out in the garden, there was always time for a break for that mid-morning cuppa out in my courtyard garden.  It's just a wonderful spot to sit back and enjoy the day and the lovely colour of the potted plants in bloom right now.

There's some pretty pinks and purples ....

 ... and some golden yellows out in the courtyard right now.

Not a bad way to herald the coming end of our Winter.

Go on over to visit Mary's meme Mosaic Monday to see other fabulous mosaics.