Glenda Larke

Not far from our house, a short walk away...Mandurah Estuary. Also saw a snake. The warm weather has woken them up, along with the goannas. Everywhere now.

Went for a walk near where we live in Mandurah and came across this old guy... didn't quite look the same as he did last time I passed him... :)

Today's photo... Mandurah Estuary.

This morning's walk photos...
It rained.

Gotta love Australian trees... Much more interesting than European species!

Today's photo: Sunshine, clouds, birds and boats... Mandurah, Western Australia.

Interviewer: "Working fulltime in the field, how did you find time to write?"
Me: "Plugging my computer in at airports or coffee shops, or hooked up to generators-- from research camps, to fishing boats in mangroves. I wrote by candlelight, lamplight, moonlight, torchlight, street lights...

A short 3 minute stroll out the back gate and this is the scenery... Feeling lucky.

Some true stories:
Queen Noor of Jordan once admired my T-shirt.
I've killed a cobra with a broomstick.
I survived 30-40 wasp stings.
I took daughter’s in-laws to a Balinese brothel thinking it was a karaoke bar...
I've swum with wild penguins.
I cooked a home meal for a Vice-President of Iran...

Some of the flowering plants we came across yesterday on a stroll outside our village...

From today's walk: a look at wood: in the 'woods'...fallen, slaughtered, and living ...

A bird on the wing, a man in a boat...Mandurah, Indian Ocean.

This morning, Mandurah beach and a lone fisherman...

From the past: husband and Rafflesia cantleyi. The flowers are parasitic and leafless and have to find the right kind of . host in a rainforest...Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.

The Kalimantan Fisheries Company, Sabah, Malaysia - with some washing drying on a saw-horse, and on the end of the jetty, the tails of stingrays, and the swim bladders of fish.
Expensive delicacies back in 2007 when the photo was taken.
(I wonder ... do people even know what a sawhorse is now?)

Today's Mandurah photo, right in the centre of town.

A photo my husband took of me 10 years ago, along the Murchison River. I think he was more interested in the tree than me...
It's a quangdong. My mum used to make a great quandong jam...I even remember her producing it over a campsite fire.

The most recent Australian school shooting, in 2012, fortunately injured no-one. There have been 11 school shootings in Australia since 1950. 4 resulted in a death. That's the total deaths that have occurred.
Yep, 4.
USA might learn a thing or two from thinking about what Australia does right...

Where we walked this morning in Mandurah. Perfect weather, perfect scenery, good friends to walk with...what more does one need?
Well, maybe birds? That island is packed with them.

In the garden this morning...a ladybug, but I don't know the name.

CW Daily THE RIGHT LOSES ITS F-NG MIND OVER CHARLIE KIRK SHOOTING I suppose the big news of the day is the sanctification of Charlie Kirk/declaration of war on the left by the right, but I want to start with....

www.facebook.com/cwdailynews/...

Husband just dug up photo of mixed tourists, taken long ago; 1990(?) Most of our photos taken on this trip have been lost. That's me on the right wearing a cheap straw hat. Clue: we were very close to the equator and it was one of the most wondrous few days of my life...

A 4-lined Tree-Frog once turned up on one of our bookcases in Malaysia, reading the cover of Ramly’s honours thesis on pregnancy urine. Appropriate, as frogs were once used to determine
pregnancy, but he was really just looking for the book on the far right, titled “Frogs and Toads of the World.”

Note the leech socks

#birds

Three of these birds were yesterday's highlight along the beach near Seascapes. Sooty Oystercatchers.

In 2006, I wrote an article "The Serpent in Paradise" after a university expedition. I don't know if what I wrote ever had any effect. My final words: "Never has so much
been so wantonly destroyed in so short a time for the benefit of so few."
You can read it here:
glendalarke.com/2006/12/serp...

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

Use AI? 30 of my books were used to create AI. No one ask for my permission. No one told me what they were doing. The thieves probably never bothered to buy a book; bet they stole them on the internet.
Authors can check for their books here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

#Birds!

Mandurah today: spot the birds.
I spent a lifetime birdwatching, preaching bird conservation. A life well-spent? Maybe. Though I remember informing a Malaysian state officer about an endangered species in the area he oversaw...only to have him ask, puzzled, "If they go extinct, why would it matter?"