aussiegall's photostream  

This evening I was photographing a bee on my echinacea flower when this huge preying mantis appeared from nowhere and caught it. It then proceeded to devour it. Unfortunately a lot of the photos I took were not great composition wise as a big leaf was in the way. This is after I managed to move it. I also noticed another strange thing. As soon as the preying mantis started to eat the bee a stack of tiny weeny flies appeared and decided to have their share as well.

We came across this fabulous place when we were at Lightning Ridge. Its called Amigos Castle. An opal miner Amigo struggled to find enough opal to purchase a house, he decided to build his own from scratch.
But rather than using bricks for a conventional house, he put his scrap material from mining towards building a castle. One of the locals told us that he used to conduct tours through it and make a bit of money on the side. Unfortunately the council have shut him down due to OH & S reasons and also that you are not supposed to build permanent dwellings where he is located. Its a shame because it looked a very interesting place and I would have loved to get a proper look at the inside of it. It came complete with an airmail letter box in the tree out the front

My image for the Beyond Layers Group. The theme was less is more. One of my old honey pots from my collection. Added Kim Klassens Awaken Texture plus one of my own

Valentines hearts

Having a break from the holiday photos, a skipper butterfly with textures