EDWARDES LAKE PARK, RESERVOIR

Edwardes Lake Park in Reservoir, is a 26 hectare district park which 135,000 people visit each year, the second largest park in the Darebin municipality after Bundoora Park, providing the setting for the 6.3 hectare Edwardes Lake.

The lake is a part of the Edgar’s Creek catchment, which is a stream of Melbourne’s Yarra River. The lake has very high community and environmental values. Edwardes Lake is an urban water body of some 85 million litres created by a concrete weir on Edgar’s Creek, as part of the Merri catchment. The lake has an upstream catchment of more than 100 square kilometres and is an important part of regional stormwater management. It is the second largest urban lake in the greater Melbourne metropolitan region.

This post is part of the Sunday Bridges meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme.

The Hardhead (Aythya australis), also White-eyed Duck, is the only true diving duck found in Australia. Hardheads are common in the south-east of Australia, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, but also in the wetter country near the coasts. They are moderately nomadic in normal years, but disperse widely in times of drought. 

 Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) also known simply as "seagull" in Australia, is the most common gull seen in Australia 

The Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio) is a "swamp hen" in the rail family Rallidae. Also known locally as the Pūkeko, African Purple Swamphen, Purple Moorhen, Purple Gallinule or Purple Coot. This chicken-sized bird, with its large feet, bright plumage and red bill and frontal shield is easily-recognisable in its native range. 

The Mallard or Wild Duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is a dabbling duck which breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand and Australia. This duck belongs to the subfamily Anatinae of the waterfowl family Anatidae.

QUEEN VICTORIA GARDENS

Queen Victoria Gardens is a beautiful park situated in Melbourne's CBD with amazing manicured flower beds, green lawns and a lot of artwork. These gardens form a green oasis bounded by St Kilda Road, Alexandra Avenue and Linlithgow Avenue are situated across from the Arts Centre and National Gallery of Victoria.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme.

PLAYGROUND IN THORNBURY

We are lucky in suburban Melbourne to have so many parks and nature reserves. However, there are also many smaller open areas, sometimes only as small as a couple of house blocks or as big as eight house blocks, which have been developed as children's playgrounds. Here is one, in Thornbury (an inner Melbourne suburb), between Rathmines and Gillies Sts, under some dramatic Spring skies. The intense blue of Southern Australian skies is evidence of our proximity tot eh ozone layer hole...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

MELBOURNE STREET TREES 51 - STERLITZIA NICOLAI

Strelitzia nicolai, commonly known as the Giant White Bird of Paradise or Wild Banana are banana-like plants with erect woody stems reaching a height of 6 m and the clumps formed can spread as far as 3.5 m.The 1.8 m long leaves are grey-green and arranged like a fan at the top of the stems, similar to Ravenala madagascariensis.

The inflorescence is composed of a dark blue bract, white sepals and a bluish-purple "tongue". The entire flower can be as much as 18 cm high by 45 cm long and is typically held just above the point where the leaf fan emerges from the stem. Flowers are followed by triangular seed capsules.

This species is one of three tree-like Strelitzia species, the other two being S. caudata and S. alba. S. nicolai is restricted to evergreen coastal forest and thicket of eastern South Africa from the Great Fish River northwards to Richards Bay. The plant prefers rich, moist soils with good drainage in full sun to part shade. The plant tolerates light frost.

Propagation is via division of clumps, offsets and from seed but note that plants require many years of growth before they begin blooming. In favourable conditions they self-seed freely, and their invasive root systems are best kept away from buildings.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

ALTONA WETLANDS

The Cheetham and Altona Important Bird Area comprises several wetland sites on, or close to, the north-western coast of Port Phillip in Victoria, south-eastern Australia. Collectively they total 1223 ha in area and lie within, or adjacent to, the western suburbs of the city of Melbourne. They were classified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because they support more than 1% of the world populations of Red-necked Stint, Chestnut Teal and Pacific Gull.

The IBA includes the undeveloped coast between Williamstown and Seaholme, including the Jawbone Reserve, Altona Coastal Park, Rowden's Swamp, the Cheetham Wetlands, Truganina Swamp, with the Spectacle Lakes complex and RAAF Lake of Point Cook Coastal Park. These contain all the remaining freshwater wetlands, saltpans, intertidal mudflats and shallow inshore waters which support the key bird species.

This post is part of the Waterworld Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wild Bird Wednesday meme.

KINGSBURY DVE COMMUNITY MARKET

The Kingsbury Drive Community Market is held every Sunday between 9am and 1pm. Stallholders sell a large variety of crafts, bric-a-brac and plants.The market is managed by Diamond Valley Community Support (DVCS).  Income from the market is used to fund the various community services provided by DVCS. The market is located in Car Park 2, La Trobe University, Kingsbury Drive, Bundoora.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

GROLLO HOUSE MURALS

Bruno Grollo (b. 1942 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian businessman. Bruno headed Australia's largest construction company, Grocon, whose credits include the construction of the tallest buildings in Melbourne, Rialto Towers and Eureka Tower. In 1999 his sons Adam and Daniel were instated as joint managing directors of Grocon.

Today Grocon employs a fluctuating workforce of 300 to 1200. Grollo proposed building the tallest building in the world, the Grollo Tower, but construction never commenced. In 2006 he was listed in Forbes top 40 richest people in Australia and New Zealand.

The Grollo Family lives in Thornbury, a few blocks away from us. They have built themselves a wonderful house, which is the home of their extended family. I was particularly interested in the murals which adorn the façade of the house on Gillies St in Thornbury. Around the front door is a beautiful mural entitled "La Storia Dalle Radici ad Oggi" (The [Family] History from its Roots to Today"). It is by artist Paola de Manincor who painted it in 1996. Sadly she passed away in 2011, but many of her murals around the world still make many people happy.

The mural is rich in colour and incident, with an almost naive style. The Grollo Family history from its humble, peasant roots in Italy is told, through the migration to Australia, culminating with its construction industry success in Melbourne at the present time. An allegorical figure, a personification of "Abbondanza" (abundance, wealth, affluence) carrying a bowl of fruit completes the family's history.

Further along the façade is another mural, this one quite whimsical and relying on a a little trompe-l'oeil effect, continuing the pattern of the huge arched windows of the building, but looking out on an American Western scene, complete with John Wayne! This is the work of another artist, but I could not discern a signature.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,

and also part of the Monday Murals meme.

Courtesy of -  http://www.ladigetto.it

PARKLANDS POND

A quiet morning at the Darebin Parklands allows one some time to reflect.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme.