Nature Photographer of the Year

The Powerhouse Museum is currently displaying the winners of Australian Geographic's Nature Photographer of the Year competition. And gosh, what a magnificent set of images!

I've been a bit remiss in not recording the names of the various photographers, for appropriate crediting. It's all there though on AG's website here: Credits here somewhere

Thanks all for your wonderful work!

I remember this robber fly was from the Juniors section.

This one's a crested horn shark, eating the case of a Port Jackson shark.












These are archer fish.

I liked this one a lot. It's a lyrebird taking a bath.

The overall winner was a dead fin whale on a western Australian beach. 

 I think I preferred this live shark though.

And I was very drawn to this view of Lake Oberon, in Tasmania's Western Arthurs. About thirty years ago I walked in to that spot (took two or three days), and took the same shot. Only mine somehow didn't capture it quite like this did!

No fire in his (red) belly!

I met my second snake of the season this morning, while doing my morning bike ride. He was there on the road looking very fierce. He was a red-bellied black snake, tenth on the list of  Australia's deadliest snakes, according to Australian Geographic. We make out that's the same as tenth deadliest in the world. Not so. Anyway, it's pretty venomous.

Mind you, they don't often chase you, or bite you. Especially when they're dead! This one had in fact been hit by a car, and he was quite lifeless.

I respectfully picked him up from the road, and put him on the footpath, so he could scare pedestrians all day! Must have worked, because when I went back this evening to photograph him, he was still in exactly the same spot. I think they'd all given him a wide berth. In fact by then his smell was considerably worse than his bite.

Storm in a storm glass

Meet my Fitzroy storm glass. I got it from Australian Geographic and it's got a magic mix of secret chemicals that enable it to predict the weather. Or so they say.
 
Storm glasses were popular with English sea captains, like Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, with Darwin aboard, on his trip around the world. They got back OK, so there must be something to it, you'd think.



















The appearance of the fluid tells you all you need to know. It can be clear, cloudy, full of bubbles, dots, stars, or flakes. Just check against the key, and sail on confidently.




I've watched it carefully for a few days now, and you sure do get all those effects. But I haven't actually seen a correlation with the weather.


The smart money is on temperature though. That's about all that seems to drive it. If it's hot it's clear. If it's cool it's cloudy. The other stuff comes in between.








It makes an excellent curiosity and talking point though!