Dryandra Blossom

Between Wandering and Williams is the Dryandra Woodland Reserve and its numbats. And it also home to some impressive stands of Eucalyptus Namelessus.

Magnified Flower

Dragon Orchids

A couple of rare dragon orchids. Probably.

Two Mushrooms

A cute mushroom couple.

Mystery Flower

Not sure what this is. I don't even know whether it's native or an introduced weed.

Rain in 2 Minutes

The rain was just a couple of minutes away now.

Curtains of misty rain swept over me from the western hills. I took shelter in the lee of a giant gum tree.

Cockatoo Landing

Raucous black cockatoos were squawking overhead.

More From Crossman Reserve

Don't fall into the ant pit. It's well defended.

Queen's Birthday Wildflower Quest

Being a public holiday, what better way to spend a day than on a wildflower hunt. I drove south and inland, through Bannister, towards Wandering and Boddington. After a couple of hours, I'd reached the legendary Crossman Reserve and its wealth of flowers.

Poaching

And this explains the lack of poaching. Armed soldiers guarded them.

Jumbo Encounter

Botswana sees very little poaching of elephants. So it wasn't a surprise to see large numbers in the National Parks.

More Eggs and Bacon

Yummy.

Chittering Wildflowers

Luckily the weather in the Chittering Valley was fine last weekend, so my wildflowers expedition went well. Below you can see Egg and Bacon and blue lechenaultia.

Woodlands Garden

I discovered a very pretty front garden outside a Woodlands home today. I may or may not in fact be related to the homeowner.

African Sunset... in Perth

Driving home this evening, the entire western sky was illuminated by an ominous orange glow. A spectacular site, it was more reminiscent of a dusty African sunset than a clean Perth one. The cause was a bushfire north up the coast that had pumped smoke into the sky offshore.

It was 5.50pm and the sun had nearly disappeared, but after a mad dash to City Beach, I arrived just in time. The glow had mostly gone but it was still worth capturing with my iPhone.

Baobabs

There are several species of African baobabs. They're popular with the elephants, who often attack them to get at the water under their bark.

Zambezi Cruise

On a Zambezi River dinner cruise a couple of kilometres upstream from Victoria Falls, the boat captain has to watch out for enormous heads popping out of the water.

Just a Leopard Up a Tree

...with a grumpy elephant underneath. Light levels were low and this was shot on maximum zoom, so the image quality is not great.

Mystery Blobby

You'll never guess which astronomical body this is. The underexposure is a result of my fiddling with the metering mode of the camera. After accidentally setting it spot metering, it used the brightness of the whatever was in the centre of the frame (the sun in this case) to determine the exposure. Not a sensible move.

Waterfall Rainbow

More from Victoria Falls. Zoom into the top left to see tiny leprechaun people at the top of the rainbow.

Victoria Falls

Zambia is on the left, Zimbabwe is on the right, and wet tourists in the centre.

Rainbow Pigeon

Bird names aren't my strong point, so I'm going to call this specimen the Rainbow Pigeon. It was seen in Chobe National Park in northern Botswana, with my new zoom lens. Clearly the colours are unnaturally lurid, so I suspect a local has spray painted this poor creature for the tourists.

Majestic African Wildlife

Having returned home last week from Africa, I'm now ready to share some of the fantastic sights. Let's begin with the mighty African squirrel.

Freaky Clouds

Walking home after the Freo Dockers game yesterday, there was an amazing cloudscape above Salvado Road.