Alex's Photos

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At the beach

I took this picture of the Seaford pier with Dean’s new digital camera. Obby wanted to straighten the picture, but Dean says it has an interesting artistic effect. You can see Obby and Jen half-way down, under a light pole.

This was taken on the second last day of June, right in the middle of winter. It was cold, but there wasn’t any wind. Jen actually wanted to dig in the wet sand. That was very cold.

Playing in the sand was wonderful fun. It was soft and sunwarmed and you could burrow your arms into it.

It wasn't very nice to have it between the teeth though. We like salt with our crisps, not gritty sand.

The entire family had to get together to make a hole deep enough to bury a couple of children. The hole couldn't have been quite big enough though, as a couple of laughing heads remained on show.

When there'd been enough splashing in the water and legs and backs began to redden, everyone went back to Anita and Bill's house for cool drinks and yummy luxury icecream.

Later we wandered around their garden and took a picture or two. Jen and Alex are at the front. Trina is behind them, with Dean, Anita and Bill.

At the sanctuary

Managing to get even this small picture was exciting. The spiny little echidnas aren't interested in posing or talking to visitors. They move around quite slowly, always on the look-out for really interesting things, like ants and other tiny creatures.
Later this little fellow came closer, but he was then in deep shadow.
What a shame!

Concerning our biggest bird of prey, the wedge-tailed eagle, there are stories and myths aplenty. Does it carry off whole live sheep? Hardly likely. With a wing span considerably greater than the height of a tall man, it's strong and impressive, but not quite strong enough to do that.
Such ideas prompted attempted extermination of these birds, and many a farmer decorated his fences with their corpses. Although we're kinder now, eagles are still run over by motor cars when they alight to feed on other road kill.

The kite is somewhat smaller, but very astute. We watched while her handler persuaded her to break open an emu egg that she knew full well to be an imitation. She achieved this by dropping rocks on it, then immediately looked up at the handler, knowing that a reward of real food would be forthcoming.

Drought

This is what a long dry summer did to our park. No frogs, no puddles, no mud to slip and slide and fall into. Just hard parched clay with a few plants grimly holding on.

There even seemed to be less birds. Very likely they'd taken themselves to gardens that offered bird baths or fish ponds.

Alex the ring-bearer

Although he didn't have to face the dangers or temptations that beset Bilbo and Frodo, Alex took the task of caring for Auntie Rachel and Uncle Evan's wedding ring very seriously. The job done, he was happy to pose under Lidy's rose arch. Formal clothes aren't what you'd choose to wear, of course, but it can be fun now and then.

Older pictures

One of the quietest and most beautiful places at the zoo is the underwater world of the seals. They swim with grace and joy, even though some show the signs of having been rescued from a slow death. Seals, particularly small ones, are often entangled in discarded plastic articles, which tighten as they grow, cutting ever more deeply into their flesh. The scars on some of these seals tell us that they've suffered but been rescued. Perhaps the time it took for them to recover left them unable to survive in the wild.

Many creatures are affected by careless rubbish disposal. It can have serious and damaging results, such as fish being trapped in plastic bags or bottles, bower birds or crows having plastic bottle lid rings around their neck, even coral being hurt by falling glass and other rubbish, while oil spills cause devastation.

Here are Mum and I looking into the frog pond at Healesville. Australian frogs are in great danger, not only because of interference with their habitat, but because of a fungous disease that continues to spread.

Here's the 2001 school photo of Jen and me. That was the last year that we were at school together. I'm at secondary school now. We don't have time to miss seeing each other during the day, and we're still able to fool around at the weekends.
Here's a picture of us having fun in the kitchen.
Jen was trying to tell me that I looked foolish.

Before Obby's old computer moved into my room Jen and I used to snuggle into my bed for a story.
Now Jen has a story in her room and I read my own books later on.

This is me when I was a baby. My thigh was as long as my mum's thumb, and I had been having U-V ray treatment for my jaundice. Because of my jaundice, when I was born I was yellow.

It was hurrying into the world that caused this trouble. Only in the last few weeks of gestation do babies get useful things like a layer of fat under their skin and a properly functioning liver.

These days I don't rush into things.

 

 

Questions or comments? I’d love to hear from you. My email address is here.

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10/07/2004