This post’s photos showcase the effect of the little kangaroo paws’ “Velcro-esque” aspect.
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The featured image shows a remarkably fresh-looking example of Anigozanthos bicolor, commonly known as “little kangaroo paw”.
On October 30 2023 there were many members of this species in bloom, but most of them looked “somewhat past their peak”.
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In order to see “just how much is going on”, you really need to get yourself/your camera near to ground level.
This post’s heroes are (I think) examples of Anigozanthos bicolor, commonly known as “little kangaroo paw” – a petite member of a small genus of bird-pollinated plants which also includes Western Australia’s (rather larger) floral emblem.
As you can surely see, the “hero” species is but one of many different plants that were flourishing on October 30 2023 in some wandoo woodland on the drier, inland side of the Darling Range, circa 100 kilometres southeast of Perth.
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This post’s photo was taken not very many footsteps distant from where I took the preceding post’s featured shot.
As you can see, even a very cursory glance at today’s featured image reveals an abundance of flowering plants, in bloom.
”A marked contrast to the plant life in yesterday’s picture”, you think?
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How do “the seasons” actually work in southwest Western Australia?
In 2023 one could reply, “they don’t, anymore!”
However, even back in the “good old days”, anyone who paid attention already knew that “seasons” in WA had precious little to do with any calendar’s dates, nor with European notions of “four seasons”.
This was already the case long before the coining of terms like “global warming”, “climate change” and “the Anthropocene”.
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The featured image, above, shows a most unusual circumstance: desert-adapted elephants right inside the walled, gated, “tourist accommodation” section of northern Namibia’s Palmwag Lodge.
The “invasion” was unexpected but it was not at all violent – nobody was attacked, no buildings were damaged, and no trees or bushes were uprooted or seriously hurt.
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Jimbo – this chapter’s star individual – is an adult, desert-adapted elephant.
As is generally true of adult bull elephants, his is a mostly-solitary existence.
Only two nations are now home to desert-adapted elephants: Mali and Namibia.
Namibia’s live in that nation’s northwestern corner (some of them do set foot in the southwest corner of Angola) – an area long known as “Damaraland”, although the currently-preferred name is “the Kunene Region”.
Contrary to popular misconception, they do not comprise a separate species; desert elephants and African bush elephants (aka “African savanna elephants”) are fellow members of Loxodonta Africana, the current world’s largest terrestrial mammal species.
The desert-dwellers are very different/distinctive, but what sets them well apart from savanna/bush elephants is largely a matter of behaviour/culture rather than genetics.
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I really loved the pictured signpost.
We did indeed see Jimbo, not very many metres away from it; neither he nor we encroached upon the other’s “personal space”.
Jimbo himself will star in this little trilogy’s second chapter.
“3” will feature some other desert-adapted elephants; their behaviour was much more unexpected/unusual.
All three chapters involve the same northwestern Namibian location, inland from the Skeleton Coast.
Overlooking the sweeping northern Damaraland landscape, the peaceful oasis of Palmwag Lodge & Campsite is set amid swaying palms, robust mopane trees and rich red rock.
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Generally, when Australian humans think of bees, they are thinking of Apis mellifera, the so-called “western” – or “European” – honey bee.
When Australian humans venture outdoors, Apis mellifera is the only bee species that most of them ever notice and/or recognise.
Australia has an estimated two thousand native bee species; circa 1,600 of them have been identified.
Around 800 identified species live in Western Australia; many of them live only in some part/s of Western Australia.
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“Our” world is so oversaturated with sensationalism, misrepresentation, haranguing, intolerance, name-calling, “cancelling”, “virtue signalling” and the “100% this versus 100% that” school of argumentation.
It has become an increasingly rare pleasure to read a measured and sensible newspaper article, devoted to a highly contentious topic.
The relevant piece was published this week in the Australian edition of The Guardian.
Fully cognisant of cats’ devastating impact on Australian wildlife, it addresses this question:
can we have cats (as pets) in a sustainable and ethical way?
You may be surprised to know that the answer is yes, albeit yes, if…
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