Local color

The weather is getting colder by the day, and we’ve broken out the hats, gloves, and warm blankets, but even so, this season in Canberra is not late autumn/early winter as we know it in the northern hemisphere. Amidst the falling leaves and morning mists are splashes of brilliant color, flowers in bloom that I more commonly associate with spring and summer. And a few that are new to me, at least outside a flower shop: the picture you see here is of a camellia in bloom, taken one day recently on a walk with Miss B. We rounded a corner in a residential neighborhood near Miss B’s preschool, and were presented with a dark-green wall, taller than I am and extending along the whole front of someone’s property, covered with these vivid pink blossoms: a whole hedge of camellias. I had no idea what they were, but a few days later I pointed them out to an Australian friend, and she identified them for me.

Check out some more floral sights of the season that I've recorded for posterity—as well as a few of our many neighborhood feathered friends!