Shining Stars

Horse chestnut leaves. Dunedin Botanic Garden, New Zealand. 12 May 2021.

Proper Autumn

What a difference it makes when the sun's out! Yesterday morning we departed our motel and then I spent more time back in the Dunedin Botanic Garden while Nigel did a site visit for his work. I wondered what difference the sun's presence would make to the horse chestnut tree - here's what I saw...

Autumn Beauty, Horse Chestnut

This morning at Dunedin Botanic Garden, New Zealand. 12 May 2021.

Colour Change

This is the lemon-coloured tree from my recent Lemon and Lime post but now it's more like orange! It was nearly sunset when I took the photos and the orange colour was stronger. I noticed the tree from my On Fire post has already dropped most of its leaves. And today has been a lovely...

Aging Gracefully

On my local walk 29 March when I took many photos, I caught the colours and textures of this weathered fire hydrant marker-post on the shaded side of a road at the outer edge of town. It's a concrete post painted yellow but nature's been very busy adding lots of extra interest! Nearby I found...

Anemones

Thinking about anemones, which to me back in the day, were always the funny little things that you find in rock pools at the beach. These strange oddities have a ring of tentacles and if you feed them, as we used to do, with a morsel extracted from a 'cats eye' rock snail, the tentacles...

Lemon and Lime

Lovely foliage in citrus colours from further up our street in Tapanui. We were driving back into town from a trip to Roxburgh on 17 April and these colours were so beautiful I asked Nigel to drop me off so I could catch some pre-sunset colour. I took these and a bunch of shots of...

Gum Trees

By gum trees I'm referring to Eucalypts or Eucalyptus species, generally from Australia. There's a fair few planted here in New Zealand, in plantations and on farms. We see them all the time and 'blue gum' is always on offer among the types of firewood for sale. The first three photos are of a single...

Rocky Roxburgh

Today in the late afternoon we were in Roxburgh and stopped at a reserve to look at some trees, then decided to climb a nearby hillside to see what lay at the top. Rocks! Roxburgh is a bustling little town in the south of Central Otago, a district renowned for dry, rugged, rocky landscapes. New...

Rainbow Gum

Tonight a spectacular photo arrived in my Twitter feed via Dr. Dean Nicolle whose Twitter bio reads: Eucalyptologist (gum nut). Botanist, arborist, ecologist & author, specialising in the eucalypts. Creator & curator of Currency Creek Arboretum. Adelaide, Australia. Website: Calyptra Twitter: @DeanNicolle1 This bright colourful tree trunk is a rainbow gum (Eucalyptus deglupta). The large...

Little Red Tree

This evening I wandered up our street till I got near the edge of town at Hancox Park where there's a little red tree I'm trying to keep an eye on. I've seen it go fiery red in a previous autumn so I'm keeping watch as its foliage changes colour. Tapanui, West Otago, New Zealand....

Catching Contrast

My autumn morning walk revealed various actors taking centre stage with no audition required; stars oblivious to their starring role, their transitory performance orchestrated by nature's play of contrast, light and shadow. These photos were taken on a single morning walk from my home in Tapanui, West Otago, New Zealand. It was a beautiful day...