Sunday Selections #464

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.

Huge thanks to Cie who gave me this wonderful Sunday Selections image.
  
The meme was then continued by River at Drifting through life.  Sadly she has now stepped aside (though she will join us some weeks), and I have accepted the mantle.
 
The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to me. Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen. 
 
I usually run with a theme.  This week I am reverting to snippets from the week that was.

My air quality is finally improving (though the same is not true of Melbourne).  The smoke in the sky does produce some spectacular effects (though I will be glad to see it gone).  These photos are both of the sun and not the moon, and were taken in 'full' daylight.

Another of the night flowering cacti flowers came out.  It was starting to come out as the light faded one night.

When I headed out to look at it early the next morning the bees had already found it.

And of course, while I was up and out that early morning I had to take other photos.

It was lucky I did.  A few days later we got a little very, very welcome rain.  With the rain came hail, which shredded a lot of flowers, and stripped leaves from trees.  It was very localised and a few streets away they got neither rain nor hail.

And in other news, the King Parrots are back, months earlier than we expected to see them.

Were we happy to see them?  Yes.  And no.  They disappear each year into the nearby hills during breeding season and it is usually autumn (or early winter) before we see them again.

I suspect the fires drove them out of the hills early, and while it is lovely to see these ones at least survived, I suspect that this year few were able to breed successfully.

We have more rain promised over the next few days and I hope (so very much) that it arrives both here and on the nearby fires which are still burning (albeit not as ferociously as they were.