Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
This post’s actual footprints come from bears in Alaska, birds on the Indian subcontinent and continental Australia, a Tasmanian wombat, and humans in an African desert and Australian suburbia.
The musical bonus is courtesy of one of the greatest jazz musicians – equally so as composer, virtuoso instrumentalist and inspired improviser.
There’s also a metaphorical footnote which involves New Zealand’s largest farm…
Comments closed
This afternoon – and for too many afternoons over the next 100+ days – “too bloody hot, no thank you”, is an appropriate response to any invitation to go walking along the shore of one of Perth’s many wetlands/lakes/rivers.
This post fondly remembers a late afternoon, back when most days were ideal for wetland-walking.
Comments closed
Most Australians have never heard of – let alone, seen – a member of the species pictured above.
Quelea Quelea – the Red-billed Quelea – is, however, almost certainly the most abundant bird on “our” planet!
It is a significant agricultural pest. Sometimes in flocks of millions, billowing in the sky like smoke…
Comments closed
On average, this (contested) title probably rightfully belongs to males of a species widespread in southern Africa: Ardeotis kori – the Kori Bustard.
They commonly weigh 18 kilograms apiece.
The so-called “World Wide Web” is in fact more than a tad Northern Hemispere-centric/ USA-centric/ Eurocentric; I strongly suspect that Africa has the biggest bustards.
Comments closed
Budgerigars, according to CSIRO Publishing’s The Australian Bird Guide, are always in flocks, sometimes of immense numbers.
That ain’t necessarily so, always!
On 18 October 2022, a whisker less than 200 kilometres north of Perth, we enjoyed an unexpected encounter with a pair of wild Budgerigars.
They were alone, together/ish.
The “/ish” is because they probably had offspring, safely invisible to us, nestled snugly within the tree hollow from which the female member of “our” pair only very occasionally and briefly emerged.
2 Comments
Unsurprisingly, southwestern Western Australia produces many different honeys, each deliciously distinct.
The most prized varieties are produced from rare, endemic species.
However, Western Australia’s southwest also has the world’s highest proportion of flowering plants that do not feed and/or seduce/deceive insect pollinators; these flowers (all, endemic species) favour birds.
(a few rely also/instead on particular, very small, also-endemic mammals)
WA’s floral emblem is bird-adapted.
Comments closed
Imagine the image above, devoid of context, and subjected to a “caption this photo” contest.
A suitably cornball “winner”:
a quiet drink with a few mates.
The featured image was taken with a long lens (560 mm) at 11.12 am on 20 February 2020.
The photo immediately below was taken just a few seconds later, from almost exactly the same vantage point, overlooking a pond/reservoir, a few minutes away from Khichan…
2 Comments
Cranes: in this case, Demoiselle cranes, the world’s smallest crane species,
Jains: adherents of Jainism, an Indian religion which is older than Christianity and Islam.
The practical application of Jainism’s central principle/vow has produced an astounding result.
For Demoiselle cranes (and for human admirers of one of the world’s more elegant birds) Khichan – a modest village in the Thar Desert – is now the world’s most rewarding destination.
Comments closed
This kookaburra, perched on a grave cross, has something in common with most of the humans who have been buried in Perth’s largest cemetery over the past 123 years.
In 2022, most living WA humans do not know what it is; most of them, in fact, have a quite wrong view of kookaburras’ “place” in southwestern Australia.
Comments closed
…are all integral to this post, which is a sequel to both the immediately-preceding one and to the 28 January 2022 post on “Hope”.
If you do not already know Emily Dickinson’s poem Hope is The Thing With Feathers you should click here before you read/see/listen to the rest of this post.
Comments closed
