Attention Seeking Behaviour

Images are deeply connected to attention, memory, sex and any number of foundational human responses - but that does not mean that they can be taken as optimal routes to those subjects. Sometimes the images are there just because the writers have invested in them, not because images are needed to make the arguments work. ... it is assumed that ideas and information come to us in a unique form when they are given as images. That assumption is tricky, because our committment to images naturally leads us to think that ideas gotten through images are truer or more interesting than the same ideas outside of images.

Quoted from: Visual Studies a Skeptical Introductionby James Elkins, 2003.

First Signs of Spring

At long last... a weekend of calm brilliant sunshine,

and daytime temperatures of mid-teens.

Crocuses, have been waiting for a spot of warmth

to open fully.

The warmth has also made the aphids on the hellebores wake up too, spoiling my photo but never mind.

These cyclamen were in the Dunedin Botanic Gardens.

But these snowdrops are in a cool spot in our own garden, note there are plenty other buds to open over the next couple of weeks.

Lest the sunshine fool us however,

the ice on the Botanic Garden pond hadn't melted by lunchtime. I suspect we are not finished quite yet with winter.

Evidence of Rain

It rained again last night ...

and again this morning.

And despite promises of 14degC from the radio weather forecast, it was nothing like that on the beach. Lapping waves obliterated the rain evidence. As we were finishing our walk a chilly wind got up, whipping drier sand over the evidence of rain and tide alike. All life is transient.

Bladder Kelp

Winter storms have once again brought large rafts of kelp onto the beach.

The bladders which give this seaweed its name can be clearly seen. They keep the blades of kelp floating near the surface of the sea, so the plants can easily photosynthesise.

The kelp is related to the giant kelp found in the North Pacific. But ours Macrocystis pyrifera,can grow just as fast - some websites report half a metre a day, others a mere 30cm, but of course that will be at the height of the growing season - in summer!

There is a report on the anatomy of kelp-fish by F.J. Knox, where he dsecribes in August 1870, how there were 'vast submerged forests with stems two or more feet in circumference fixed to the bottom of the sea, [which] is often used by Cook's Strait fishermen and captains of small coasting vessels to secure their crafts to in a gale of wind.'

All I can say is that if you had secured your boat to these specimens you'd have been in for a nasty shock, they were clearly not big enough to secure any-sized boat.

Reference: "Observations on Coridodax pullus" by F. J. Knox, L.R.C.S.E., Transactions & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, vol 3, 1870

Brooding heavens

One speaks of the moods of spring, but the days that are her true children have only one mood: they are all full of the rising and dropping of winds, and the whistling of birds. New flowers may come out, the green embroidery of the hedges increase, but the same heaven broods overhead, soft, thick, and blue, the same figures, seen and unseen, are wandering by coppice and and meadow.

Quotation from: Howard's End by E.M. Forster.

Gulls in a Warm Spot

A group of gulls warming their feet on a recently parked car.

Whilst they carefully watch the car parked next-door, which has a couple of people eating their sandwich lunch.

But this time patience isn't going to be rewarded.

A youngster cannot keep still, and spooks them all.

So they fly off to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Still at least some had warmer feet than before.

Now that the leaves have gone...

We can see where all the noise came from. During last spring we were deafened by the delightful (but not at 6-O'clock in the morning)trilling of a warbler, close by.

We hadn't realised quite how close.

Now that the leaves have fallen, the remains of the grey warbler's nest are revealed in this japanese maple tree, just by our front door.

Incidentally, the drive way is quite steeply sloping, which is why the car appears decidedly squint in the background.