A few of my favourite photos from my walk around the gardens today.
Blossom in flower – there’s always a few early ones.
Love the bright colour.
The gardens really are lovely any-time of the year. I must be one of their biggest fans 
Victoria Square by the bridge and the Avon river. It’s all looking quite pretty at the moment even though it is now technically winter.
Eye see you
The Town Hall and the Ferrier Fountain, looking a little sad.
Yesterday I was out walking (sans camera of course), when I saw a bellbird feeding on this kowhai tree. Rather than being annoyed with myself that I only had my cellphone camera with me, I decided to enjoy the moment. The bellbird was only a few feet away from me and I couldn’t believe my luck at it being there and so close just as I went past. So, I decided to test my luck and go back today.
Initially, all I could see was wax eyes feeding, but after a short time of just standing very still and watching the tree, a bellbird finally arrived. My only problem now was that it was intent on being on the other side of the branches and never that close to me. Fortunately I had my long lens, but no matter how quietly I stood or tried to be invisible, it was just not keen on coming closer and into the sunny spot. But, I got this shot and I love it as I didn’t realise at the time that I had actually captured the shadows on the bird, so it looks like it has a crest!
If you live near a kowhai tree I encourage you to spend 10 minutes near it and wait – you could be rewarded with a vision like this.
It snowed yesterday! It’s only late May for goodness sake. I like when it snows, it’s pretty and fun to photograph, but I was not feeling that wonderful yesterday (fighting off a flu) so the thought of snow was not that exciting at all. Fortunately for most of Christchurch, we got a little bit of snow that didn’t settle and was gone by this morning. Though as you can see from the photo, people living in parts of the port hills did wake up to snow.
The weather yesterday got me thinking about when it was exactly that we got a big dump of snow last year. And, one of the benefits of doing a daily photo blog (well nearly daily) is that 9 times out of 10 I can go back a year and see what the weather was like or what I was doing that day. So it was June 6th last year that we got a big dump of snow. I remember thinking that was too soon… I can also go back two years and tell you that we got a big dump of snow on July 25th 2011 – and some of us lost power! I can also tell you that I was very surprised on August 15th 2011 that it snowed again! Ah, I wonder if we will get another big dump this winter?
The Port Hills this morning.
As you can tell from the snow on the mountains, we are not far off from winter. It was a beautiful light this morning with the sun hitting the buildings.
Then, by later in the afternoon, the cloud had come in and mountains were looking like someone had put a vignette around them.
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