The Extraordinary

The Blob

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On my way out the other day I noticed  a bright yellow blob on the bark of a fallen tree by the gate. Must get a photo of that, I thought — but I forgot for few days.

When I returned with the camera, the bright yellow had turned orange, with older purple edges and only small oozings, awfully like custard — or worse — showed yellow.

Now I had not seen this before, but from previous investigations into another of the family, I knew it must be a slime mould, Myxomycota. They’re not fungi but tend to be lumped with them.

I had been fascinated that they move about like amoebae, reproducing into perhaps thousands of ‘daughter cells’; then, at some sort of chemical signal, they all get together and make a larger organism.

Some species make such large organisms that a horror movie, The Blob, was inspired by them. 

This is one of the most common, worldwide, I had read. It’s in my fungi book as Fuligo septica, with the common name of ‘Flowers of Tan’, but the much less poetic and more apt names I found to be most common elsewhere were ‘Dog vomit mould’ or ‘Scrambled egg mould’!

Fruit firsts

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I don’t understand what’s going on in my orchard — or not going on, actually. The bower birds and the king parrots have arrived, as usual, to eat the fruit on the trees that I haven’t got around to netting, which is all of them this year.

I knew the mulberries were coming ripe in stages and have been going over to stand and eat my breakfast’s first course on the hoof, so to speak.  This year I don’t have time to pick them in bulk and turn them into jam or pies —  I need a tribe of children to come and eat them.

But I don’t get why the birds haven’t eaten them yet; the ripe ones are as sweet as they come and all the rain has made them full and juicy.

Assuming the birds will take them all soon, I thought I’d photograph the bounty just to show it can happen.

That’s when I spotted the cherries. In 16 years I have never seen the fruit on my two cherry trees get past a few faint blushes of pink before they disappear. I may have eaten one — once. But the trees are tall and skinny — and laden; far too high to reach easily, but I am thinking of lopping them just to get those gorgeous globes.

Any bird would be mad to pass these up; what is going on?

Leafy visitor

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I’d just cut back the woody stems of the verandah vines — the ornamental grape and the wisteria. A scattering of brown tendrils and dry curling leaves had landed on the verandah and I began to sweep them off.

Only, one decided it didn’t want to be swept and began lurching away.

It was so delicate I’d have broken it with one unwitting blow, had I not seen it for what it was — a small leaf insect, one of the Phasmid family, like the stick insects.

I do have the CSIRO field guide to these extraordinary insects, but I can’t find this one.

Flared and flattened, curled and bent, blotched and pitted — what amazing camouflage! Not much use on this drawer I was airing, so I carefully let it cling to a stick and transferred it to the brown stems and remnant leaves from whence I expect it had come. The delicacy of its feet, especially the questing front ones! 

Nature truly is awesome.

Special effects

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Living on a mountain, my eyes are directed as often to the skies as they are to ground level.

Clouds fascinate me — and I’m not alone — as the wonderful Cloud Appreciation Society website shows.

I especially love it when massive cloud banks like this one, snagged on the mountain range, are lit by a sunset still existing somewhere over the horizon, but gone from here.

My place is almost dark, yet up there in the skyworld the clouds see further, chase the glow and capture it as a very special solar lighting effect.

Yet I have to keep my eyes on the ground as well. The constant surpises in nature here range from the sublime to the minute.

This almost translucent little beauty emerged to stand, solitary, simple and fragile, in the midst of the whole ‘lawn’ beside the house.

Two days later it is still there and still solo. To me it seems brave and hopeful, but then I’m a romantic.

Arty nature

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The significance of ultra-abstract art often eludes me; I might appreciate it as design and colour, but it doesn’t speak to me. I don’t warm to it, relate to it, as I can to the merely abstracted, stylised, simplified, where the origin is vaguely discernible. In the latter the artist’s treatment of it stimulates my imagination more than straight realism would.

As pure visual beauty, for shape and colour and flow, I’d hang this one on my wall any day — if I had any space left around the bookshelves and existing paintings and photographs. The uncluttered look is not for me; I want everything I love where I can see it.
The cabin might be full, but I live in the midst of a forest that can dazzle me with temporary exhibitions of works of art like this one. The paint was fresh and bright after a spell of rain; a week later the colours will dull and fade, or flake off.

The artists are always ‘Anon’ but they belong to a most innovative and talented group called ‘Nature’.

Free diamonds

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After showers, if the air is still enough, for a very brief period before the sun soaks up the raindrops — I am given diamonds.

Every tiny leaf holds a trembling drop of water that catches the sunlight to sparkle and shimmer. The magic only works while the light is at a certain angle, so I always know to cherish the moment and run for the camera!
Even my hodge-podge of a vegetable garden fence is transformed; for a few minutes its strips of netting new and old, large and small, cobbled together as a snake barrier, become a thing of beauty.

Crescent cloud

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crescent-1Clouds never cease to surprise me with their inventiveness, their capacity to confuse the senses and scramble their connections to the mind.

In one almost cloudless sunset sky recently, at a time when I thought I knew the moon was half-full, I briefly also thought I saw a huge crescent moon. 

Pink and perfect, it made me look twice and it made me rapidly sift through my frequently addled brain to check what sort of moon I had seen last night — if I had seen one.

A matter of seconds, but how refreshing to be challenged yet again by nature and its unpredictability.

High-stepping visitor

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A streak of white down on the little dam alerted me to something different happening there. It was some sort of bird.

I crept closer, staying below the fenceline, as the bird had frozen, clearly on the alert, its round eye bright with tension.

A solitary waterbird, with the typical long legs and neck and pointed beak, its pose held and twinned in the reflections below.
heron-1But what was it? More important than identifying it now however, was to get a photograph, in case it flew off before I could see more details.

I edged away and back up to the house for the camera. As I returned towards the fence, the bird did take off but only across the dam, where it stood, totally uncamouflaged, amongst the tussocks for a while.

Meanwhile I took up a post at the gate and froze like a statue myself, to reassure it.
heron-2My bird book tells me it was a White-necked Heron.

I wanted to ask it so much: where had it flown from? Was it on a Grand Tour, and where would it meet up with other such herons? Did it always fly solo? Why did its neck look like a twisted white rope? And did it realise how beautiful were the subtle mauves and tealy hues on its ‘grey’ feathers?

It wasn’t a long visit, and I may never see a White-necked Heron here again, but how special it was that it came — and that I saw.

Over-the-top orchids

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orchids-1Drivng back from the Gloucester district a few weeks ago, I passed above the very steep and narrow, very special gully near Dungog where a remnant rainforest of giant trees like figs and stinging trees and white cedars stand tall and proud amidst a dense jungle of vines competing for the light.

I am always freshly struck by the sight of this small pocket of grandeur, a reminder of how so much of the country around here must have been like once.

This time, however, my eye caught unusual splashes of white high up in a native fig. It was some distance downhill before I could pull over and walk back.
orchids-2Thanks to the magic of my zoom lens, I could be sure that they were King Orchids (Dendrobium speciosum, var. hillii) Hundreds of feet up, several fat clumps of them had colonised in forks of the trunk, clinging on with their fleshy fingers as they climbed along the broad branches. A staghorn shared their treehouse.

These spectacular sprays of white were even more so because they were here in this special, natural place – no gardener had placed them there.
orchids-3At the time, my orphaned clumps of the same orchid had been still in bud, my place being so much higher in altitude.
Now, their turn has come.

Grounded, they are closer to me and I can see their colour range from cream to white, the dab of yellow in each throat, and the tiny maroon ‘freckles’ that lead to it. And I can smell them —  honeysweet like wattle, but with an edge of musk.

They are part of the view from my outdoor loo, which will tell you partly why it was designed deliberately door-less. 
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Culture and kangaroos

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Recently I stayed in a rustic cabin by a billabong where Nefertiti rose serene from the water and Dusky Moorhens kept a respectful distance, trailing ripples as they trawled for food, and creating delightful reflections.

At The Old Brush reserve near Cessnock, NSW, acres of mown native grass surround eight billabongs and countless picnic spots and fireplaces with wood stacked ready. In secret and mossy spots in the forest or in sundrenched clearings, you come across statues or civilised garden seats.

culture-2Kangaroos laze in security by Grecian columns; semi-naked ladies swoon by equally ‘palely loitering’ Blue Gums; a multitude of birds other than waterbirds are attracted to the water – such as a flock of White-headed Pigeons.

Metres away from the bottom accommodation cabin, I saw a Bower Bird’s display bower, with its collection of blue objects, including plastic pegs!

The reserve is owned by Robert and Gail Bignell, and they share its beauty with the public.  Robert is a professional photographer and has his Rainforest Studio there.

Visitors are welcome to picnic, camp, or rent a cabin, and Robert keeps kilometres of paths mown or clear for easy bushwalking through the stunning bushland beyond the valley floor ‘garden’ of his 40 hectares — with access to the adjoining Conservation Area. City and overseas visitors love it!

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Juxtaposition of the civilised and the wild creates an unusual extended garden where people can access natural bushland of varying types in safe and signposted walks.

I was there to soak up some more of its peaceful pleasures than I’d had the chance to do before — because I’m going to nominate this wonderful place for an environmental and community award.

Visit The Old Brush website.

The magical New England National Park

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On the way in to the New England National Park I began passing snow gums and trees so hoary with mosses and lichens that I couldn’t say what they were underneath.

At over 1500m above sea level, this park has spectacular views looking out but also looking in.
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Gondwanaland plants like Antarctic Beech and tree ferns make some of the walks here as eerie and green as a trip into the land of Lord of the Rings.
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Treading gingerly over damp tracks and beween giant mossy rocks on the side of the escarpment brought me to the Weeping Rock – whose tears were frozen mid-fall.
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And thence to Point Lookout itself, where I wasn’t game – yet again– to venture on to the cantilevered viewing platform.

By the time I got to the Wollomombi Falls, the highest in Australia, the sun had sunk too low to get a good photo of these rugged and quite scary falls. You’ll have to go there yourself!
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But I walked a little and heard so many bird calls, one after the other, that I knew a lyrebird was about. And then I saw him! In a small copse of shrubs, singing through his wide repertoire of mimickings, and displaying his beautiful tail. What a treat!
Aren’t national parks great?

Weird woody worm

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I have an old wooden stepladder that I keep in the shed. Last time I used it was to trim the ornamental grapevine on the verandah.

The other day I fetched it and placed it under a grey gum where I was mending a swing. Perhaps an hour later I went to fold it up and return it to the shed.
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That’s when I noticed the bit of woody vine tendril stuck on one corner of the top step. I went to flick it off — but then it moved. It looped its way along the step, such dressed timber not allowing it to be as well camouflaged as it ought.

It had bark-like patches and twig-like knobs; it was beige and brown and grey, with tinges of pink and green — just like a living twig. An amazing little creature.
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When it raised its head to suss out where to go next, it was almost rabbit-like with such thick antennae and a sloped face; but the rest of it was more caterpillar-ish, with three pairs of feet at the front and then a long stretch — the loopy part — before the end, where there seemed to be several pairs of feet separated by a sort of velcro gap.

But I could only catch glimpses of this occasionally; I could have sworn I saw blue under there — blue velcro? Or had its velcro picked up one of the very rare dots of old blue paint from the ladder?

It would appear to be a caterpillar of some moth of the family Geometridae, according to my Animals in Disguise book by Paul Zborowski.

I said it ‘looped’ along, but I could have said it inched along. Not surprisingly then, their common names are Inch Worms or Loop Caterpillars.
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I could only assume it had fallen from the branches above; when I placed it on the rough bark of the trunk, it stood out straight like a twig, but soon dropped to the leaf litter at the base, where it looked much more at home. Just look at those markings!