Wildlife

Post #154 Monday 15 March 2021 – Travelling circus

Posted in: , , , ,

Monday 15 March 2021

Following on from the last post I couldn’t find on the internet exactly the final passages that I was looking for from Gerald Durrell’s charming book. But I did find something related which I thought I’d post to remind people who know the book. On reflection the book seems altogether too innocent a thing to recall in these difficult times.

This summary review has been written by a person who does home schooling, which is very apt considering Durrell’s book is an account of his childhood during five brilliant school-free years on Corfu in the years before the war, filled with variety and the wonder of the natural world.

https://journey-and-destination.blogspot.com/2017/07/my-family-and-other-animals-by-gerald.html


Durrell did have private tutors though, as the reviewer reminds us in this quote and final note:

“One day, Mr Kralefsky, one of Gerald’s tutors, informed Mother that he had taught Gerald as much as he was able and the time had come for him to go somewhere like England or Switzerland to finish his education:

‘In desperation I argued against any such idea; I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant.’

Mother was adamant and so the family returned to England with the words of a [Swiss] border official, ‘One travelling Circus and Staff’ written on their ‘Description of Passengers’ document.”

I know I put this book reference up because I was amused by the Swiss border official. But incidentally, looking at this summary review, I’m reminded it took me until first year university to discover this idea of education for myself, when a philosophy tutor, responding to me in a tutorial when I’d commented that perhaps it was a good thing we first read the great thinkers as part of the basic curriculum, had said, well maybe not, maybe it was a good thing to experience ideas thinking you are the first person to uncover these truths. His idea was a complete revelation to me. I may well have fancied myself liberated by a creative “free school” high school education but I was deeply conservative – maybe even conformist lol!

xx MG

Post #153 Thursday 12 March 2021 – March visit to Sydney

Posted in: , , , ,

Thursday 12 March 2021

Dear friends, thanks to so many of you for understanding that I am just having to keep things low key for the foreseeable future. You are always welcome to get in touch any time though, I am not going anywhere 🙂

Meantime I have a visit booked for Sydney 24, 25 and 26 March. I am also still visiting Canberra and Wollongong, and locally in the Southern Highlands, on an ad hoc basis. While I am in Sydney at other times from time to time, it’s not for MG.

My last post had a photo of the black swan Harold looking all moody and elegant in the middle distance behind the bullrushes. I have great news: he finally flew away, it would have been about Valentine’s day. So his gammy foot did not hold him back. He has launched into his own life finally and will be somewhere out there finding swan friends.

So while going out with my kayak on the water is still as nice as ever I miss seeing Harold doing his thing. There are always other diversions though, such as blackberries (terrible pest but lovely fruit).

And also interesting flowering plants, including this small pink flannel flower which scrambles down the rock and hangs over the water in one place. I have never seen this flower before. My gf sent me an article saying that it is apparently not common and generally will only grow after bush fires in higher altitudes. It is exceptionally lovely.


And I have a new animal friend, a white goat. He’s very philosophical looking, perching calmly out on the high rocky outcrops in the day, or tucked away in a protected sunny spot early in the morning. I think he’s basically feral. And also something about him makes me think he could be a senior goat lol. I’ve been taking him carrots (when I remember), and leaving them at the same place I’ve seen him in the early mornings.

There are quite a few water dragons on the rocks too. I was paddling up the centre of the waterway and saw what I thought at first was a stick, but then it was moving, so I thought water dragon swimming from one side to the other. As I approached the reptilian head and neck, I swear in an instant it changed its’ body language expression from: “dum dee dum doo daah …(minding my own reptile business, swimming along delicate little head high up and out at an angle)”, to “crikey what’s that”, and then “yikes, I am outta here!” as it saw me, heaved to an urgent stop and lurched away. It was a red bellied black snake. The deep red showing up as it turned.

And all this story telling about creatures reminds me of the end of the book by Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals. It never gets old. I will find it and post a copy.

xx MG

Post #148 Sunday 11 October 2020 – swans

Posted in: , ,

Sunday 11 October 2020

I’ve been meaning to provide an update on the swans. Here is an image from the last available set of photos. With spring the evening air is thick with insects so the image is a bit busy with them.

We don’t see the swans so much these days though. I suppose they need to travel further for feed. Every green reed on the water’s edge looks as though it’s had the same perfect haircut from the swans.

xx MG

PS I am planning on having some more MG new images for the Galleries later in October.

Post #145 Thursday 1 October 2020 – travels in November and December

Posted in: , , , , ,

Thursday 1 October 2020

Good morning friends,
It’s been a long time between drinks on the SS Letters from America that’s for sure but bear with me, 2020 has been quite a year. Scheduled tours in Sydney have been going well. I can also fit in ad hoc meetings on most Wednesdays after 3.00pm with a bit of notice. So if any one in Sydney wants to meet at short notice later on a Wednesday, you are welcome to contact me.
Meet ups in the Southern Highlands, Canberra and Wollongong are great in between. The Forester has just sailed past 200 km and going just fine.

The dates for next scheduled Sydney tours, staying at the usual place, are:

Sunday 8 November to Friday 13 November 2020, and
Sunday 6 December to Friday 11 December 2020.

I would love to write more but as I know the stalker snoops around on everything I do, it’s just made it less fun and it gives her more fuel for her obsession to feed on. As most of you know it’s a female stalker, obviously not anyone I’ve ever seen or know, she’s just filled with jealous rage because she’s had a long term fixation on my partner. Sigh. My happy life goes on but she’s kind of wrecked the pleasure I’ve always taken in doing MG. She’s got some kind of fantasy that she’s competing with me (I think?), and so she copies me too. Once her identity was found out though she stopped the threats, so that’s good. And I’ve shut down all the online avenues for her to reach me with her slimy unpleasant messages, so that’s something as well. We’ll just keep going. Perhaps she’ll find someone else to fixate on. Women who have no conscience engaging in violent manipulative behaviour toward a “rival” when the love object they are fixated on is not interested in them, really puzzle me. I mean there is no point sister, he’s not interested. You need to learn the bus stop theory. Just wait at the bus stop, one bus leaves and in 15 minutes another one comes along. With no disrespect to the uniqueness and intrinsic value of each person, the world is absolutely packed with good people to connect with, open your eyes.

To happier things, this is my overdue update on the swans. This video was taken 22 July 2020 when the cygnets were about three months old. After the loss of two little ones fairly early on, the fleet has stabilised at five cygnets. They are about twice this size now. Five cygnets is a very successful season. It’s been such a pleasure watching them progress.

xxx MG

Post #144 gentle perfect sounds under the full moon

Posted in: , , , , ,

Monday 6 July 2020

My Sydney visit could not have started better than it has. I actually came up early for a girlfriend’s birthday drinks. That was so fun. While I stayed in the Campari lane (Negroni much as I love it, is too strong for me), I was also introduced to the pretty amazing flavour of an Australian “smoked gin”. Does anyone know about this? I will make efforts to penetrate the local gin distilling scene and report back.

This evening I’ve done one of my favourite things – walking at night. I can’t really walk at night in the country (a) because it is too dark (b) it puts the farm dogs into a frantic (c) walking at night is really a city thing anyway. It’s all about the quiet lights radiating from houses, glimpses of people at home in their rooms with books and paintings or in their kitchens, or watching the tv, still city gardens – intimate landscapes, the harbour, city lights, the racket of occasional flying foxes.

It feels a bit Venetian (well land-based Venetian :-))

This is a slice of my night walk, coming back over Darling Point, looking through the terraces toward Elizabeth Bay.

The best of all, is coming down the hill to Rushcutters Bay to hear one of my favourite sounds, rope gently thumping against the mast. And once there are a few boats rolling gently it’s like a gamelan orchestra. You never hear them tolling so clearly and gently during daytime.

I made a lovely little clip of the full moon and the gentle sound of rope against mast.

MG xx

Post #124 Tuesday 18 February 2020 – after the fires: floods… and frogs

Leave a Comment

Posted in: , , , ,

Letters from America

Tuesday 18 February 2020

Following on from my recent sad post about the NSW fires, here is an update. January 2020 drought:

February 2020, rain:

I have never seen so much water in the weir. We had more than 400mm rain in about a week. Should we be standing by for the pestilence now?

This is the new roaring sound a paddock makes :-):

Flooded paddock, with rushing sheets of water coming from two directions.

And we had a welcome expression of joy from the local RFS:

Rain rain rain!

And comparable expressions of joy from the frogs:

xx MG, so grateful for the rain.

Post #120 Sunday 26 January 2020 – The fires

Leave a Comment

Posted in: , , , , ,

Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 26 January 2020

I can’t write much about the fires: the volunteers, climate change, the failure of political leadership and will, the animals, the forests. And it’s beyond me to do an “I will donate X% of my earnings in January” thing (which a lot of generous escorts are announcing on social media), I just don’t have “the spoons” as they say.

I have deep feelings of loss and I can’t say a lot about anything.

Here is a photo of the beautiful spotted gum forest on the South Coast – it will have been incinerated. I don’t think I can get myself to visit again any time soon.

Spotted gum forest on the South Coast with the fern-like burrawang cycads in the understory.

I spent many wonderful holidays on the South Coast where my grandparents bought a hobby farm when they retired.

Here are links to a couple of small wildlife rescue operations local to my new home, if you would like to donate.

1. Higher Ground Raptor Centre

https://www.highergroundraptors.com/

Peggy McDonald has been has been rehabilitating owls and eagles in the Southern Highlands for more than 40 years. This is her selfie with wedgetail.

2. Southern Cross Wildlife Care

https://www.southerncrosswildlifecare.org.au/

Howard Ralph works at a local hospital as a medical doctor to fund his life operating a volunteer veterinary hospital in Braidwood with his wife Glenda. No plans to retire.

I have been directly affected by the fires too. I’ve been told to evacuate by the local RFS four times now. (I did go promptly the first three times, the fourth time I dragged my feet). We will just have to see how February goes. It’s very dry, hot and windy. There are two fire fronts active close by: one to the South about 12 km away and one to East which has been as close as 5 km when it has been on the move. This is the fire map published on Friday evening:

The hotspots fire map on Friday 24 January 2020

It’s Australia Day though, so it’s barbeque time, and here is one version of the case to change the date (CW: this Youtube video is probably, as they say, entirely “off brand” lol):


A metaphor for unreconciled life in modern Australia – the shared house. For those who have never done it, “you’re not missing anything”*.
*Peter Sellers, The Party

xx MG

Post #118 Monday 28 October 2019 – more on the Whitsundays

Leave a Comment

Posted in: , , , , , ,

Letters from America

Monday 28 October 2019

Following on from my earlier post about adventures in the Whitsundays, I wanted to add another image. These are the Norfolk Island pines, with their very distinctive geometry, everywhere on the Whitsunday islands. This is the ridge of the cove at Refuge Bay where we anchored overnight.

I managed to find an internet link which gives the back story to how the pines came to be here. I had some ancient recollection they were not native. https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A7952664

So it was Captain Cook who brought the seeds of the pines to northern Australia wishfully supposing they might provide timber suitable for masts.

I have always found it hard to be on the water in the Pacific and not think of Captain Cook, Joseph Banks and all the great naturalists. For quite a while one of my favourite non fiction books was a book called “Darwin’s Armada” by Iain McCalman. It’s an account of the great sailing voyages of Darwin’s peers. It’s absolutely compelling reading (if that’s your kind of thing). It’s ages since I read it but one of the passages that still stays with me vividly is an account of how the Pacific peoples must have experienced navigating, with only the simplest instruments and no charts – what resources, skills and understanding of the sea they must have had.

But then I am very partial to all things Charles Darwin (and his milieu). The Voyage of the Beagle is so engaging. Here is a favourite passage in which Darwin describes interactions with wild llamas.

Scientific method: “…if a person lies on the ground and plays strange antics, such as throwing up his feet in the air…”

xx MG

Post #117 Saturday 26 October 2019 – Whitsundays

Leave a Comment

Posted in: , , , , , , , ,

Letters from America

Saturday 26 October 2019

I am back from lovely holidays sailing with friends in the Whitsundays. I have an excellent tan to show for it. I actually didn’t want to come back. The South African guy at the charter yacht company was no help either, just suggested I read the book with the self explanatory title “Sell up and Sail”.

This was the outlook when anchored overnight in a place called Refuge Bay:

In the evening I could hear a slightly mournful bird call. At first it sounded like a dove but it was too insistent. It turned out to be a couple of pheasant coucals calling to one another. (Don’t ask me how I figured it out, it was intuition confirmed by internet searches.)

The call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lluJIiLuuFg

Here are some images of the bird itself which I borrowed from Google:

Flying … (this type of feet first flying, good for short distances only)

I put this second image in because it has the fence wire for size. I have actually seen these birds and I can warrant they are concurrently large birds and small dinosaurs.

The “sell up and sail” caper is something I like to enjoy vicariously these days by watching youtube channels. My favourite channel is one called Free Range Sailing. It’s a youtube vlog maintained by an Australian couple who are cruising in a very modest yacht, mostly in tropical waters. Apart from the sailing, they do quite a bit of free diving on the reefs, spearfishing and exploring on shore. Pascal is a very good and resourceful cook. She also seems to be the creative lead in making the vlog – which is high quality well edited video. Her partner Troy is an excellent hand at keeping their 30 foot 50 year old yacht on track and in shape. He seems to handle the inevitable breakdowns of gear in good form and has a droll sense of humour. They are of course, “free range” so it all appeals to my tree hugging temperament. You aren’t going to find them zapping around churning up the peace of the natural world on jet skis any time soon. Highly recommend! And here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbU2ulPD3rJ4OZCNH7-gjjQ

xx MG

Post #64 Wednesday 29 November 2017 – November trip to Canberra

Leave a Comment

Posted in: , , , , ,

  Letters from America

Wednesday 29 November 2017

It was a lovely visit to Canberra this month.  On the morning I was due to leave Canberra it was raining very softly, exactly the way it doesn’t rain in Sydney (where it shamelessly buckets from all directions).  I took a walk near where I was staying and saw many lovely things including this fine sculpture – an enormous sheet of steel unfolding up the hillside.  And this trip, when I walked in the evening, I saw more bunnies on the lush Canberra lawns than I have ever seen anywhere.  It was like walking into a Beatrix Potter story.  The Canberra bunnies were out and about, mostly in pairs, quietly feasting in the dark.  They were so fluffy and almost tame.  Back in my day I think it was a bit of a heavy myxomatosis scene and there just weren’t a lot of bunnies anywhere at all (sigh).  Such a treat to see them abundant and healthy now in a place where there is lots for them to eat.

xx MG
enjoying gentle vertical rain in Canberra from time to time