Black Magic

There is something of black magic in the photographer’s art, in that he stops time. … I don’t know that I think much of the camera. It appears to hold reality to hostage, and yet fails to snap thoughts in the head. A man can be standing there, face expressive of grief, and in side be full of either mirth or lust. The lens is powerless to catch the interior turmoil boiling within the skull, now can it expose lewd recollections – which is all to the good.

Quotation from: Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge

...until they think warm days will never cease

The title is a quote from the Keats poem Ode to Autumn. Certainly just recently we have had some glorious sunny, calm days, another one today with the temperature reaching 22deg, warmer than many summer days! These honey bees are busy feeding on Sedum spectabile, or pink ice plant. It is frequently cultivated with I have to say, not a lot of effort in this part of the world.

Seasons of Mists...

One morning on the way to uni, I felt sorry for sorry for the wage-slaves, who must surely have missed this brief moment when sun, clouds and mist formed a perfect backdrop to the Dundas Street church.

And the next morning, perfect sunshine made the dew glisten in the fields on the hillside across the valley from home.

The Table Fort

Under the table was a fort. With the six chairs tucked under it there was still plenty of room; it was better that way, more secret. I'd sit in there for hours. This was the good table in the living room, the one that never got used, except at Christmas. I didn't have to bend my head. The roof of the table was just above me. I liked it like that. It made me concentrate on the floor and feet. I saw things. Balls of fluff, held together and made round by hair, floated on the lino. The lino had tiny cracks that got bigger if you pressed them. The sun was full of dust, huge chunks of it. It made me want to stop breathing. But I loved watching it. It swayed like snow. When my da was standing up he stood perfectly still. His feet clung to the ground. They only moved when he was going somewhere. My ma's feet were different. They didn't settle. They couldn't make their minds up. I fell asleep in there; I used to. It was always cool in there, never cold, and warm when I wanted it to be. The lino was nice on my face. The air wasn't alive like outside, beyond the table; it was safe.

Quotation from: Paddy Clarke ha ha ha by Roddy Doyle

Elegant Limpet

I took these photos some time ago, and have been puzzling ever since as to which species of limpet they are. So yesterday, with a spare half hour I went to the Animal Attic in the Otago Museum - never mind the current temporary art work exhibited there, a small exhibition by Clive Humphreys - I had a look at the shells on display. There lying next to each other were two specimens of Cellana radians one much larger with a more robust outline than the other. The smaller of the two was uncannily like my limpet. The trouble is, of course that it is notoriously difficult to identify shells from photos alone, which is what I'd been trying to do using various websites. The eye gets taken in by pattern, but that is not a good characteristic upon which to identify species

Cute, cuter, cutest

Three young sparrows taking shelter from a chilly wind whipping through the Octagon.

Just hunkering down with some warmth from the engine,

it looks a good spot,

from which to investigate, or, simply to take a break

before hopping off.

The busy scene of human life

When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to interest and possess the mind, it is said to have life, that is, to live in the mind which is the recipient of it ... [W]hen some great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the public throng and draws attention, then it is not only passively admitted in this or that form into the minds of men, but it becomes a living principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of itself, an acting upon it and a propagation of it...

It will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtelty, introduce itself into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion and supporting or undermining the foundations of established order ...

This process is called the development of an idea ... And it has this necessary characteristic, - that, since its province is the busy scene of human life, it cannot develop at all, except either by destroying, or modifying and incorporating with itself, existing modes of thinking and acting.

Its development then is not like a mathematical theorem worked out on paper, in which each successsive advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it is carried on through individuals and bodies of men; it employs their minds as instruments, and depends upon them while it uses them.

Quotation from: John Henry Newman An essay on the development of Christian doctrine[1845] London, Penguin Books, 1974 pp 97-9

Ross Creek Ferns

Not five minutes stroll from our house there is a patch of secondary-growth forest in Ross Creek that is particularly lush with tree ferns. On a steep hillside facing south, but well sheltered by canopy of lemonwoods, tree-fuchsia and lacebark the tree ferns flourish. From the pathway you can look down onto the crown of sliver ferns or ponga Cyathea dealbata. This is only a young specimen.

On the other side of the path, the size of these ferns is more obvious. Though in fact, this is the black tree fern Cyathea medullaris, it is the largest of New Zealand's native tree ferns and can grow to 20m tall. This specimen has a fair way to go - I estimate it to be a mere 3m tall. The fern book says it is fairly frost tender, but our next door neighbour has a small stand of large ones - easily 5m tall - in a shelterd gully. Hers would have been planted when the house was built about 15 years ago, and we've had some good frosts since then!

This fantastic rosette of fern leaves, belongs to a fine clump of crown fern Blechnum discolor, which in less trampled parts of the local bush (further up the hill!) can form extensive ground cover. Behind it is another silver fern.

Brownsey, P.J. & Smith-Dodsworth, J.C. New Zealand Ferns and Allied Plants Auckland, Bateman, 1989

Ruskin to Carlyle

People are continually accusing me of borrowing other men's thoughts, & not confessing the obligation. I don't think there is anything of which I am more utterly incapable than of this meaness - but it is very difficult always to know how much one is indebted to other people - and it is always most difficult to explain to others the degree in which a stronger mind may guide you - without your having at least intentionally, borrowed this or the other definite thought. The fact is, it is very possible for two people to hit sometimes on the same thought - and I have over and over again been somewhat vexed as well as surprised at finding that what I really had and knew I had, worked out for myself, corresponded very closely to things that you had said much better.

Letter from John Ruskin to Thomas Carlyle Monday 23rd January 1855. from:The correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin ed by George Allan Cate, Stanford University Press, 1982

Red Sky Red Sand

A weird reddish sky on the horizon, at mid-day, and very calm conditions at the beach on Sunday. Notice how the waves swooshing onto the beach are uneven. Reminds me of text-book formation of cusps, and indeed the sand is forming wee rolling hills (admiteddly hard to see in this photo). Although they are never strongly pronouced on this St Clair beach, unlike the Kentish gravel beaches I remember from my youth.




A patch of reddish sand - which on closer inspection turned out to be coarser grained material with a fair amount of broken shells. Nevertheless the gulls were feeding on tiny shrimps washed up on the tide-line, which they'd be doing all the way along, red sand or not.

Old Man

"Albacore," he said aloud. "He'll make a beautiful bait. He'll weight ten punds."
He did not remember when he had first started to talk aloud when he was by himself. He had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or in the turtle boats. He had probably started to talk aloud, when alone, when the boy left. But he did not remember.

Quotation from: The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

Glenfalloch Fungi

New Zealand has a particularly rich fungal flora, with an estimated 20,000 species most of which remain undescribed. Identification of toadstools and mushrooms is notoriously difficult, but I've had a go, and after consulting various field guides have come to the conclusion that these are possibly Honey Mushrooms.


If I'm right the Maori name is harore and they were once used as a food. Although William Colenso (1811-1899)mentioned they were eaten only when other foods were scarce. Elsdon Best (1856-1931), the ethnographer, noted that harore were cooked by the hupuku method (ie put into a basket and placed bodily in the steam oven).


There are two species in the genus Armillariaof honey mushroom, both widespread throughout New Zealand, living on dead wood of both native and introduced trees. These specimens were growing on a large old tree stump, in Glenfalloch Gardens. The stump was so covered in lichens and moss that it was impossible to tell what it had been in life. In the middle picture the group is at a younger stage than the other two pictures.

Source: Eric McKenzie Introduction to the Fungi of New Zealand, Hong Kong, Fungal Diversity Press, 2004