Glenleith Pigeons

Our local bus shelter had a makeover during the summer. It is appropriate that the artist painted native wood pigeons on the side as they are common round here.

At this time of year the pigeons are frequent visitors to our garden. Here a pair are sitting in our cherry tree. By way of explanation the white boxes belong to a double- truck toiling up the hill of the northern motorway on the otherside of the Leith Valley.

The pigeons are quite tame, and will sit on the railings of our balcony for twenty to thirty minutes at a time.

They are, I think, waiting for the berries of the swan plant to ripen. But as they are tasty the birds never let them ripen properly. So in our garden we only get to see yellow berries, instead of the bright orange seen on more inaccessible plants.

Car Park Carex

This is a large planting of a variegated sedge Carex trifida in one of the car parks at Otago University. Most people simply walk by without a second glance. I like the great large brown flower spikes.

But there is an interesting story to tell. Variegation is very rare in a sedge. This variety called 'Rekohu Sunrise' was first discovered by Terry and Lindsey Hatch, of Joy Plants, Pukekoe in 1992, as a naturally occurring 'sport' amongst carex seedlings. It remains the only sedge that is variegated. A quick google search revealed that it is available for sale in US, Netherlands, UK and probably other European countries. There are plant patents and the Hatch's have an application for European Plant Breeders Rights and it has received US Plant Patent 20,512 on December 1,2009.

It is also deer resistant, according to the US garden plant websites, which is not something we have to worry about in central Dunedin.

The pictures I saw of it on the various garden websites, showed nothing like the vigorous growth that is exhibits here, shaded in the afternoon by a tall building, and in some tough dry old clay soil. Just goes to show plants in their native habitats (the parent Carex trifida is found on the Chathams, South Island coastal areas, and Stewart Island where it's called tataki) and climates do better than transported half way across the world - well sometimes!

That Nameless Piece of Furniture

He rose and stood with his back to the fire-lace, taking his glass with him. The newly opened bottle with its attendant siphon stood on that nameless piece of furniture, neither sideboard nor dressing-table but with some of the qualities of each, which gave the drawing-room at Cambo its look of being both unready and unwilling for the uses of everyday life.

These emblems of relaxation, together with the fire, surely a luxury in September, which crackled and sputtered as though angry at having been lit, were the only notes that offended against the room’s habitual primness. But they were enough to change its aspect; it now assumed, with a very bad grace indeed, the air of giving a party. And this was the more odd because Mr Cherrington and his sister were both in black, and he when he remembered to, and she as of second nature, wore expressions of bereavement.

The Shrimp & The Anemone by L.P.Hartley

Hanging-on for dear life

St Clair Beach is long, sandy, and relatively barren of inter-tidal invertebrates. Except for these old pilings, where some creatures maintain a precarious foothold.

Top-shells nestle in a crack. The popular literature on NZ fauna is not very extensive and old. But I think these are dark top-shells Melagraphia aethiops.

A colony of small black mussels live in slightly more exposed location. Apparently they are considered a southern variety of the European mussel Mytilus edulis. How unromantic!

Whilst in larger crevices a mixed colony of small barnacles, small mussels and some top-shells have found shelter.

Source: New Zealand Shells by John Child, 1974, Fontana, Auckland.