Ain't love grand!

Today has been a very busy day with so many different things happening. First of all we attended a wonderful lecture on Native Australian Bees at the Belair National Park Volunteer Centre. We will be signing up as friends of the park and volunteers next week!

As we were parking the car I could see right in front of us, on a large grassy clearing, 2 life-size statues of emus. As I got closer I saw them move and realised that they were REAL! I grabbed Paladian's camera as I knew it had the long lens on it, and snapped away for a few shots while they stayed within range. I have never seen emus in the wild like this before.

I can't hardly believe it, for such an obvious Australian icon, that this bird (a pair in fact), is a first for BlipBigYear!
The emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the largest native bird in Australia and it is the second-largest bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. This flightless bird reaches up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) in height.

Feel the love.

They were obviously a courting couple and took no notice of me. Usually they will run away if they see people approaching them. This was a rare treat.

On our departure from the lecture, I noted the emus had disappeared and so we visited the old Railway dam nearby. It supplied water for the steam trains in days long gone past.

I got some wonderful images of trees and shadows reflected in the dam, along with the old pumping machinery.
Paladian got a super shot of a white faced heron.

From there we visited Crafers to look at a brilliant garden which backed onto the Knoll Reserve. Took an interesting walk in the reserve and noted it for a future blip safari.