Nature Study

"If the love of Nature be frozen or crushed out, the character can hardly fail to suffer from the loss.

To look is much less easy than to overlook; and to be able to see what we do see is a great gift.

Many of us walk throught the world like ghosts, as if we were in it but not of it. We have 'eyes

and see not, ears and hear not.'" - Sir John Lubbock.

Litoria phyllochroa - otherwise known as Green Stream Frog, Green Leaf Tree Frog or Leaf Green Tree Frog.
Very cute little beastie that came inside clinging to the hydrangea I'd just cut.

For information on Aussie frogs:

http://frogsaustralia.net.au/ 
http://frogs.org.au/frogs/species/Litoria/phyllochroa/


A Visitor for Lunch

Sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita - 'cockatoo with a crest'). Beautiful large & very raucous birds. Very common where we live but we don't often have them land on our verandah, thankfully. They can be very destructive and make an ear-splitting racket. We have bush around us and they tend to stay up in the big old hollowed out gum trees.

"Above all, it is hoped that the habit of open-air study will make life more satisfying to many. We have to forget ourselves in order find ourselves; and an interest in Nature, aroused in youth, will not only save a man from much useless fretting, but will do much to awaken powers that adds to the worth and dignity of life."

"The exercise of the faculty of admiration does more for a child than perhaps anything else. For many centuries the great minds of the race have been telling man that he who has not learned to love has not learned to live. Now, love is based on admiration. It is vain merely to tell a child to love God, or to reverence God, as if by some effort of will this could be done. But let the child learn the joy of sudden wonder and delight at the Creator's work, and then reverence will rise without effort." (William Gillies, "First Studies in Insect Life in Australasia")