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.

Early Morning Smoke Not Mist

We woke up this morning to a strange red glow. The sun was just a big red ball. There was a very strong smell of smoke as I opened the curtains.

Some 30km north-west a forest fire had broken out during yesterday afternoon. It was too fierce, and the country too rough, for ground crews so choppers with monsoon buckets were busy putting it out. (Not that we heard or saw them - too far away!)

The haze was quite obviously smoke as this view (below) over Flagstaff shows.

By the time we came home in the evening the smoke had all gone, so presumably it had all been brought under control.

The Carmel River

The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn’t very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is dammed to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live. In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in. Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it. Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water. The farms of the rich little valley back up to the river and take its water for the orchards and the vegetable. The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk. Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs. It’s everything a river should be.

Cannery Rowby John Steinbeck.

Rainbow's End

We don't get a lot of rainbows here for some reason, but when we do they are quite spectacular. This was taken one evening and you can just make out a double end.

This was the following evening, appearing in almost exactly the same location.

Coincidentally almost exactly a year ago we saw another rainbow, although the double was at the other end so to speak.