Southwest Western Australia’s flowering, feathered and furry members of the first two categories need each other, vitally.
Could their survival prospects have anything to do with the third category?
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Our planet has just two white-tailed black cockatoo species.
Both are endangered, and their only “home” is in southwest Western Australia.
My beloved and I live within a very few minutes flying time of the centre of this region’s one metropolis.
For some months of every year, we see and hear one of those two species almost every day – on most days, more than once.
All photos were taken in Blencowe St, West Leederville
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All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken on recent walks on local streets and footpaths.
The lovely, spacious musical bonus comes from the northern hemisphere…
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Kathryn Schulz’s superb essay is called What Do We Hope to Find When We Look for a Snow Leopard?
Although not primarily about snow leopards, it particularly refers to a 1978 “classic” – Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard – and to a recently-published book by a Parisian who also pursued an ardent desire to encounter a snow leopard, on “the roof of the world”.
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Did I stumble upon his/their avatar in a Tibetan Plateau marketplace?
Peter Lewis’s essay is an amusing and perceptive look at “Scotty”and Billy, as fellow “masters of pastiche”.
Morrison doesn’t even pretend to try to build his own coherent body of work. It’s not that he can’t come up with a tune. Far from it, there is a ditty for every occasion. It’s just that it’s not leading us anywhere.
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Arguably the quintessential nostalgic song, I’ll Be Seeing You was composed in 1938. (music by Sammy Fain, words by Irving Kahal)
That year it was inserted into a Broadway musical…which flopped.
The song, however, became a “standard”, covered by countless singers…and not a few instrumentalists.
It was a #1 hit for Bing Crosby in 1944.
Frank Sinatra recorded it more than once.
Even Eric Clapton did so, in 2016.
The most celebrated recording – Billie Holiday’s 1944 version – is the one which reached Mars in 2018, as the conclusion to NASA’s final transmission to its Explorer rover.
However, the most “out of this world” version to reach this Earthling’s ears is a “live” and exploratory instrumental trio treatment, delivered in “the city of fallen angels”, in June 2016.
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Most mallee species are eucalypts, and more than half of Eucalyptus species are mallees.
Their generally modest height and oft-“untidy”/“shaggy” appearance blind some people to mallees’ beauty, their great diversity, and their oft-astonishing buds and flowers.
As with so many Australian species, the closer you look, the more spectacular, surprising and glorious they are.
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..is by no means uncommon in Perth, but this one delivered something amazing.
The photo above shows Lake Monger Reserve’s southernmost section – its faux “European” part – where exotic trees and lawn predominate, still.
The image below looks to the lake’s longer, eastern shore, where an ongoing rehabilitation process has re-established more appropriate riparian vegetation.
There, “local” plants now predominate. They – along with other measures to reduce eutrophication – are key to Lake Monger’s recently-improving health, after circa 170 years of seemingly-irreversible, human-induced decline.
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The Australasian Darter – Anhinga novaehollandiae – is our single member of the Anhinga genus, which has just four species.
All of its members are commonly known as “snake birds”.
You could consider their “snake” as a spearhead, with a brain-powered, spring-loaded, feathered shaft.
The shaft’s spring-loading is via their neck’s unique hinge mechanism, at the 8th & 9th vertebrae.
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Are many Australians woefully ignorant of what income levels currently sit within reasonable definitions of “normal” and “top end?”
Are the leaders of both of our major political parties deliberately furthering our ignorance?
According to Peter Martin’s solidly evidence-based article, the answer to both questions is a resounding “yes”.
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