Swallow that!

Twitter, twitter, tweet!

Time to get the camera out for a bit of twitching. This is a swallow as you'll all have guessed - a friendly little chappie perched on a waterway signpost by the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. But the more observant of birdwatchers from the UK might spot that there's more red on this bird's head than there should be. That's cos it's a Welcome Swallow Hirundo Neoxana which is the common swallow down here - the one we get back home is the Barn Swallow Hirundo Rusticana. But don't swallows all fly across the world backwards and forwards - shouldn't they all be the same. Goodness no! There are dozens of different types of swallows - keep your eyes open.

Made it in one piece!

Finally got our 'Z' - this is at Zillmere parkrun in Brisbane - a curiously poorly attended parkrun considering it's all off road - it's a mad dash round several sports fields and I got lost! Well not exactly lost but I tried to go round one of the fields again - with no other runner in sight I got a bit disorientated and lost 4 places to come in 8th in 27:17. Vicky was assisted by Scout (Skip's mother) and breezed in with a time of 34:59. Just 'J' and 'V' to go with our parkrun alphabeteering. Weather conditions were much more conducive to running - no humidity, no sun, an early morning (7 am) temperature of less than 20 degrees - you'd have thought we'd have both flown round. Let's try again next week.

Road signage in Queensland is often present to state the obvious. Here this indicates a one way street or a highway exit. Other signs warn motorists to beware of kangaroos, (a real danger and we've come close to running one over already!) Various miscellaneous signs that we've also seen include those with pictures of koalas, emus and crocodiles - we've yet to see the cassowary signs or the ones that say beware of falling coconuts but these do exist. Other signs are there to correct possible misapprehensions (see below!)

.....never mind what the satnav says!