Category: Western Australia

Aspects of Colombia (#12 in teaser series: very leggy)

Published July 15, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#12 in teaser series: very leggy)

Colombia is a global “hotspot” for spider species.

More than 580 of those identified there are believed to be endemic; they have only been seen in Colombia…knowingly, at least, by human eyes.

I do not know the pictured spider’s species, nor its particular specialty/niche.

My hunch is that it is semi-aquatic; I suspect that it actively hunts its prey, rather than “trapping” them in a web or pit.

I can confirm that its legs were very long; they spanned a considerable portion of the relevant rock, which was not merely a pebble

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Aspects of Colombia (#8 in teaser series: yes, this reptile does eat capybara)

Published July 5, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#8 in teaser series: yes, this reptile does eat capybara)

It was rather obvious that the capybaras pictured in #7 of this series were all looking in the same direction, intently.

Probably, their eyes were keenly focused on this post’s hero, who was basking on the wetland’s opposite bank.

S/he is a spectacled caiman – one of six living caiman species. (or three species – caimans’ classification is a contested/confusing field)

Caimans are South & Central America’s crocodilians.

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Looking down(final in series: ground level, around Ravensthorpe)

Published June 10, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down(final in series: ground level, around Ravensthorpe)

Ravensthorpe is a “remote”, very small town.

More than 500 kilometres southeast of Perth, its shire covers more than 13,500 square kilometres, but is home to fewer than 2,000 humans; Ravensthorpe is the smaller of its two towns,

No other local government jurisdiction on earth is home to a larger number of eucalypt species!

For endemic flora more generally, it is one of the globe’s “hottest” places, with an incredible number of “endemics” – species which occur (naturally) only there.

Ravensthorpe sits within the Fitzgerald Biosphere – named after “our” planet’s most significant national park for near-coastal, Mediterranean-climate flora.

The northern boundary of Fitzgerald River National Park is just a few kilometres south.

It is no exaggeration to say that Ravensthorpe’s annual wildflower show is one of the world’s finest…& most astonishing.

All photos in this post were taken on a single day, within 30 minutes’ (2WD) driving distance of Ravensthorpe.

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Looking down (#50: on a handsome but shy “omnivorous scavenger”)

Published June 3, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#50: on a handsome but shy “omnivorous scavenger”)

This post’s hero inhabits the well-vegetated edges of wetlands – both natural and man-made – right across Australasia, Oceania, and as far north as the Philippines.

Gallirallus philippensis – the buff-banded rail – is neither rare nor endangered, but it is very secretive.

Almost every living adult Australian human would have been within close proximity of one, more than once.

However, most people have either never seen a buff-banded rail, or have never enjoyed an unobstructed, full view of one.

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Looking down (#43 in series: on a Sicklefin lemon shark)

Published May 1, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#43 in series: on a Sicklefin lemon shark)

In March 2016 my beloved and I were in northwest Western Australia, “sailing” on a motorised yacht from Broome to Wyndham.

(with many “tinny” side-trips to islands, tidal creeks, beaches, waterfalls, etc)

We were “exploring” the Kimberley Coast – the world’s greatest tropical coastal “wilderness”.

Around 7am on the fourth day of March, we were just a few kilometres distant from Horizontal Falls – this coastline’s most celebrated “attraction”.

By Grand Canyon standards, visitor numbers were infinitesimal.

However, by “way-out-of-any-town” Kimberley standards, we were in severely tourist-infested waters.

Accordingly, some local sharks have learned that a boat may provide a “free feed”; we were far from the first tourists to observe a very relaxed shark, so “amazingly close” to “their” boat.

To my knowledge, “our” boat did not feed the shark.

Nonetheless, the image immediately above does show a mutually beneficial relationship between a “client” (the shark) and some “service providers”..

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Looking down (#37 in series: on a Wandoo woodland’s floor)

Published April 1, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#37 in series: on a Wandoo woodland’s floor)

If you wish to experience an incredibly diverse array of extraordinary flowering plants – most especially, species that naturally occur in only one part of the world – you’d be best-advised to avoid places with “good” soil and abundant, “reliable” rainfall.

The “winning” combination: “poor” soil, unreliable rainfall and a very high evaporation rate!

Arguably, the world’s best natural “flower gardens” are in the southwestern “corners” of Africa and Australia; there, “looking down” is almost always rewarding, but most especially so in Spring.

I took the photo on 30 October 2023, circa 100 kilometres southeast of Perth.

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Looking down (#22 in series) at a Perth footpath, in winter

Published February 24, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#22 in series) at a Perth footpath, in winter

The West Australian Perth is enormously bigger, much hotter, and very much sunnier than the Scottish Perth.

”Surprisingly”, the Australian city’s average annual rainfall is only moderately lower, although its rain falls on (mostly, straight through) nutrient-poor sand rather than fertile, moisture-retaining Scottish soil.

The Australian Perth is also one of the world’s windiest cities, and almost all of its rain falls quickly, in winter.

In summer a Perth (WA) pedestrian who looks straight down at a footpath will usually see only “lifeless” sealed/paved surfaces, edged with bare sand.

In a “proper” winter, however….

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Looking down (#20 in series) on a Banksia

Published February 20, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#20 in series) on a Banksia

Membership of the genus is hotly debated – should Dryandras be included, or not? – but, however defined, Banksias are extraordinary plants.

These members of the Protea family are unique to Australia.

The overwhelming majority naturally occur only in certain parts of Western Australia’s southwest.

Depending on when one encounters it, a banksia’s flower spike can be prodigiously shaggy, “untidy”, and drab…. or a glorious example of perfect symmetry, Fibonacci sequences, and subtle colouration.

Each flowering “spike”/“cone” bears many – sometimes, several thousand – individual flowers.

I particularly love the appearance of some banksia flower spikes when viewed from directly above.

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Looking down (#19 in series) on winter-flowering WA orchids)

Published February 17, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#19 in series) on winter-flowering WA orchids)

Generally, with flowers, the best strategy is as per the generally-best approach to photographing people and most other living subjects….

1: try to be in (or very near to) the same horizontal plane as your subject.

2: point the lens straight at its eye/s or “face”.

3: ideally, do this when the sun is low, and behind you – nicely illuminating the subject rather than turning it into a black silhouette or a mere scatteration of light.

Sometimes, however, the better plan – or at least, something worth trying – is to flout some or all such rules.

This post’s image looks straight down at the top of its subject, in “poor” light, in the middle of a winter day.

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Looking down (#12 in series…on Australia Day)

Published February 2, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#12 in series…on Australia Day)

As you probably know, on Australia Day 2026 circa 2,500 people took part in an entirely peaceful “Invasion Day” rally/protest in Perth’s Forrest Place.

Adjacent to Forrest Place, and overlooking it, is Forrest Chase’s elevated walkway – from which an IED (improvised explosive device) was hurled.

Had it worked as intended, the probable consequence would have been multiple injuries…perhaps, fatalities too.

By virtue of the bomb-throwing occurring in Perth, rather than in Sydney or Melbourne – and the bomb’s failure to detonate – Australia’s Sydney-centric, so-called “national” media were regrettably but predictably slow to grasp the seriousness of this profoundly disturbing incident.

Meanwhile, that afternoon, my beloved and I were blissfully ignorant of what had happened, as we enjoyed a long walk along the Rocky Bay cliff line, above the Swan River.

The waters immediately below the North Fremantle cliffs (where river and ocean are separate, but very close to each other) were thronged with Australia Day revellers, and many millions of dollars worth of boats.

Goodwill abounded.

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