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Pelicans are a common occurrence along the Gippsland Coast #1 - Lone Pelican Pelican Couple #3 - Incoming #4 - Landing #5 - Formation Some Gulls from the same trip can be seen here

I got the email a few days before Christmas. Would I be interested in shooting a house in Umhlanga Rocks for their International Real Estate magazine? When I had picked myself up off the floor I replied. "Of course, but let me just check my schedule..." Not really a joke, I was flat out right up until the week before Christmas, so I slotted this one into a very bright and sunny Saturday morning. The editor I was working for was very specific that they wanted a daytime shoot and not a twilight one because they want the houses to be presented as close to reality as possible. God was smiling on me that day because our weather had been truly awful on either side of the shoot date. Anyway, I submitted about 44 photos of this incredible home and they chose 13 for the slide show. I am very happy to present the link to the article for you here.

Over the holiday period we had a few days away. We stayed at Port Albert, a small village which was once one of the colony of Victoria's busiest ports! First stop on the way down was at Agnes Falls Agnes Falls Looked quite nice, but access was only to the top of the falls. Another trip was to 90 Mile Beach. 90 Mile Beach This extends from just east of Port Albert all the way to Lakes Entrance - ironically, the opening of the channel at Lakes Entrance was one of the factors in the demise of Port Albert. On our return trip, we spent a day at Wilson's Promontory. Picnic Beach - Wilsons Promontory We walked along a series of such beaches - I could have kept going even further, but didn't have enough gear with me.

Alan, I am so glad that you are safe.

Just the irreplaceable and those things difficult to replace easily. Most important: all my hard drives. My Claudet stereo daguerreotypes, Larriveé LV-05E, Maton T-Byrd (serial# 0003 media release & the 1st one sold retail) and Epiphone ES-345 custom guitars. All my main camera gear. 3 changes of clothes. Sleeping mat & sleeping bag, keys, wallet, cards, phone. It took just 10 minutes to gather this up and perhaps it would take five more to pack the car if needed (which it wasn't). Given my relatively open situation I have plenty of time to get this together and have clear escape routes to the north, east, south and west, depending on where the fire is coming from. This was a big factor in helping to decide on buying this place - my previous home was in the bush at Warrandyte with no view to the north or west (where the fire traditionally came from), and only one escape route to the south across the accident-prone bridge over the Yarra, which, if blocked, cut off all escape routes (this would apply to at least 3,000 people these days - trying to move that many over a single bridge even with the additional added lane quickly enough to escape a sudden bushfire is a politician's fantasy; the place is a death trap which needs another river crossing and a widened road). The Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 scared the crap out of me when I realised we could be trapped there and would have to take our chances in the river, and while thankfully the fire didn't get there, I swore my next place would have easy, safe egress with views that provided plenty of warning in all directions.

In the past couple of weeks I discovered that a Long Beaked Corella chick had been hatched in my oak tree and had started to walk around the yard grazing on seeds (as its close cousins the cockatoos do) as it still couldn't fly. It had no trouble climbing into the tree, where its mother would drop in twice a day to feed it, regurgitated from her crop. The youngster had woken me up each morning with its simple, but loud two-notes call, but this morning it didn't. Having seen it cross the road before, I thought it might have been run over, but walking into the sun-room a while later showed a more grizzly scene on the other side of the fence. The chick had become breakfast for a Brown Falcon, which took off too soon for me to get outside and try to sneak up to get a clear shot, so the one above taken through the glass of the window and the fence in between will have to suffice. I found it interesting that the falcon had decapitated the corella to kill it (the head was a couple of feet away), and had totally eaten out the body cavity but left the drumsticks untouched with feet still attached.

Perhaps there are some other chicks elsewhere who are benefiting from this.

Some gulls from a recent trip to Port Albert in Gippsland. Gulls in Line Pacific Gull - Adult & Juvenile Pacific Gull - Juvenile Pelicans from the same trip can be seen here