Welcome back to my weekly blog. 

This week’s blog will be a review of the shots taken last weekend in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.

First a quick review of where last week’s blog was viewed, this week we had a tie for first place with Australian and the United Kingdom on equal numbers then the USA and then a tie with Canada, India and Japan. So again, coverage of the globe for last week’s blog. Thanks.

Again, another hot week here in South west Sydney So not too much about this week I was also a bit later than usual so right in the heat of the day, so not so much activity to shoot this week. I thought since there wasn't so much in the way of wildlife about I'd try a few tree shots, getting a bit of practice in for the next few weeks (More on that later).

This first shot is of the woodland area where I spend a bit of time shooting the woodland birds. This is typical Cumberland plan woodland, not too much of that left and this has all regrown in the last few years, before the gardens took over the site this use to be a cleared dairy farm, so gives an idea of the power of the bush to regenerate. There's a sign at the start of this path showing a shot of the area cleared compared to the view there now. 

This next shot bit of an experiment Think this ones still work in progress shot an intention camera shack at slow shutter speed, but i think I need a bit of lens corrections to take out the reverse barrelling effect, I tried several shutter speed surprisingly it needed a faster speed than I thought, this was one of the faster ones I tried, but another stop or so might have been better, this one was at 1/40th of a second. One to try again later, or maybe not. 

This next shot is of the Stolen Generation memorial, this one with the afternoon light hitting it to give the shadows and detail from the side lighting. This is the area for Superb wrens, Variegated Fairy-wrens, Scrub Wrens, Grey fantails, eastern Yellow Robins, Fan-tail cuckoos, Bell Miners, Scarlet Honeyeaters, Misteltoebirds and Grey Shrike-Thrushs plus a few others. so plenty to be found around here if you just sit and wait. Not so much this weekend in the heat though. 

Another shot of the woodland showing the number of tall thin trees starting to fill the space. 

Next up a more detailed shot of one of the gum trees and the colours and textures as the bark starts to shed. 

Followed by the same shot but this time after a bit of processing in Topaz.

And again the same shot but a little wider this time. 

This shot is showing a branch with the bark ready to fall its already shredded and ready to come off in stings of bark. So like a loose netting over the branch now.  

It was while taking these shots that a small group of Weebills (Smicrornis brevirostris) appeared high up in the canopy, these were really too high to get a good shot and this shots pretty heavily cropped in which is why the image quality isn't the best, but I was starting to think this might be the only wild life I find this week.  

But the Bell Miners (Manorina melanophrys) never let you down they are always around this area. These are usually not long in one area so you need to be a  bit quick to get one of these in a decent shot. 

From there I tried the main lakes and found a small group of Australian Wood Ducks (Chenonetta jubata) making their way from the water onto the grass for the afternoon feed. this one was in mid-march when I captured this before the second foot hit the ground. 

Last up a pair of Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) Standing on the path drying off after bathing in the lake. 

Not a great week for shots this weekend, wasn't the best time to head out with the heat and all, but it was then or not go out at all sometimes you never know what you'll find out there so worth a try. Though the results this week not the best. 

Over the next few weeks I'll be traveling and photographing in Tasmania for a few weeks so depending on availability of internet access if I can get a blog post out of not in the next week or so, if not there will be plenty of shots to share later, I'm sure if last year’s Central Australian trip was anything to go by. So, keep an eye out of the next blog post hopefully in the coming week with the first half of my Tasmanian trip. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, back next week with luck with more, something different.

Glenn.