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A stroll in Albert Park

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 I wanted to see what the situation was for the Royal Spoonbills (and to get off my tushie and get a little exercise) so walked from home along the Eastern and Northern sides of the Lake to MSAC. There were few birds in the Southern Lake , possibly reflecting the number of rowing boats around. The first brood of cygnets appeared off Gunn Island  where they had ventured far from shore.   The Australian White Ibis colony is going great guns: my estimate (aka guess at order of magnitude) for the whole Lake was about 250 birds.  Another brood was close to shore, but I doubt the cygnets could get out here. This particularly fresh and cute, team (led by K30) were in the Northern reed beds.  Overall I think I saw 6 broods. When I got round to the Lakeside Stadium it was easy to see 2 Spoonbills on part of Mud Island.  They were visible from near MSAC when heading for the tram.  I couldn't see any trace of the second pair recently seen engaged in breeding...
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Rhodedendrons revisited

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 This is primarily about a return visit to the Dandenong Botanic Gardens, home of the National Rhododendron Collection.  When we left Frances said words to the effect of "That was soul restoring."  I agreed with this saying in addition "There was room for that!" I shall justify my comment with a note about  the first half of the drive towards the end of this post, but let us begin with nice pictures of flowers. We set off heading for the Cherry Grove passing by the valley, which was just beginning to come into flower (I was expecting that the gardens would not be in full blossom). There were plenty of rhododendrons out however.  The next three images show some of the colours. Most of them were of the main type.  The next image is a Vireya type. A combination of colours. When they get going the massed colours are wonderful. This huge tree was some distance off the path.  I think it was a rhododendron. The attraction of this was the carpet of red petals ...
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Croquet at Cairnlea

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 A friend is playing croquet for NSW in the Interstate Shield, being played at the Victorian Croquet Centre at Cairnlea.  I thought I should go out there for a squizz.  Looking at the site on Google Earth there didn't look to be a lot of parking on site ... ,,. so I decided to save diesel and go by public transport.  This was a 4 mode saga. Some interesting sites in the Tottenham area as we rumbled West.  The first was the low number of passengers on the train. I read an article about the suburb of Tottenham during the week, mainly devoted to their being no dwellings in the area.  I have just confirmed this in Census Tablebuilder!  The silo in this (underexposed) image has an interesting bit of graffiti. Zooming in the middle 'character is Pam the Bird!  I have no idea what "SC<>RM" means.  I am unsure if 'Uncle Tobys' still operates or if this should be scored as a ghost sign. A little further down the line another set of silos had a s...
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