It’s been threatening to flower for months - and at last it has.

Gymea Lily - Sydney

The single flower is about 10-15cm wide - with more to come.
The stalk is ~4-5m high.
For reference those are good size yucca bottom left

#nature #flower #garden

"I told you it is wet"
Sydney - August rainfall pushing us into exceptional year territory compared to last ~150 years.
2022 was record breaking by far

Bugs in the backyard
Never seen one of these before
#insect #photography
Body is about 5mm long -
It’s sitting on a block of wood 40mm wide

In hot water.
Warmest monthly sea surface temperature recorded ever in Australia (equal to Mar 2016) - source BOM

January was hottest monthly Australian Sea Surface Temperature ever (equal with Mar 2016) - source the BOM

For that season, a significant portion of all forested areas of NSW were burned.

Of course not
And the LNP plan is a furphy.

BTW: Indian Point (got a mention in the Simpson's once) is now shut, but waste still stored on site, owner wants to discharge some waste into Hudson.

I lived for a while ~15km from Indian Point Nuclear plant ~50 km from New York City within the so called "Peak Fatality Zone".
Evacuation route signs on roads.
Yearly emergency evac planning letters.
Get your KI (potassium iodide) tablets from council offices.
Are we ready for this?
#auspol
.../2

Had to fight off this one the other day.
Botany Bay Diamond Weevil - the lesser one

TIL - One of the first Australian insects to be described from material collected in 1770 by Joseph Banks

All well and good ...
But notice the impact on avg. wholesale price and what generation type(s) is impacting that price.

Charts shows avg. value v. generation volume for Sun Dec 1 and Mon Dec 2 on same scale.
What a difference a day makes!
Source: openelectricity.org.au

Decorations are up
Cockatoos, a couple of lorikeets, and the waning moon

Did same just near you after high tide - looked better earlier.

Water is clearer right now as not a large nutrient load (chlorophyll = algae) flowing past us right now.

Its not only the specific site
I lived for a while ~15km from Indian Point Nuclear plant -50 km from New York City.
Lived in the "Peak Fatality Zone".
Evacuation route signs on roads, yearly letter drops.
Could get KI (potassium iodide) tablets from council offices.
Are we ready for this?

Whorls and eddies in the river of life.
Temperature and phytoplankton along driven by the East Australian Current along the NSW coast

7 days of fire hot spots from orbiting satellites.

Older hot spots are darker, newer are more yellow.
You can see the current QLD fires

Some spots are industrial sites/gas flares (Burrup in WA)/smelters