Saturday 15 September 2012

Sunshine or study - the spring dilemma

Spring. 
White fog enshrouded us this morning. 
Our valley was swallowed. 
Ghostly giants, karri trees, slowly reappeared as the rising sun dissolved the mist in an arc of rays.



Later blue skies and warm weather beckoned. Too lovely outside to be stuck inside tapping away at the computer, studying. I heard the sounds of baby birds being fed from somewhere in the dense shrubbery. Stopped to listen and pinpoint their position. The background hum of bees, making the most of the warmth and spring flush of nectar, was louder than the baby birds. Wattle birds zig-zagged between our garden and a giant karri, feeding their young up high, then diving down into the eremophila for nectar and insects. Extremely territorial, they chased away even the parrots that dared to get in their way. A frog started croaking, so probably more rain is on the way. That is the way of spring.



This is the hardest time of the semester to keep motivated, between assessments, between seasons, but what you put off now still has to be done later. So, back to it. Lieutenant Dale and his contemporaries... I wonder what it was like around here back then. When speaking of birds in his Descriptive Account of  ... King Georges Sound and the Adjacent Country  (published in 1834)he noted that 'the whole of the continent seems to be deficient in the feathered tribe'. When travelling through the bush, Dale said they rarely saw an animal. He suggested it may have been the fires killing off the young birds and animals in combination with egg hunting by the local tribes people. Or perhaps the birds were there but they didn't notice them?

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