"Light studies" - a "Photo Essay"

This is not about Belief.

This is about the things 
which make the Earth live.
 By that I mean truly alive.

Light, Water, Earth, Air 

and the frogs, fish and birds and plants.

Here are some "light study" images 

from the trip to Bermagui, last weekend.

At the coast, there is water.
Water changes the light, 
and light changes the way we see water.

Without wishing to start a fight with any of my Darwinian colleagues, I wish to quote several lines from Genesis Chapter 1 (King James Version, of course). The reason is simple - this is part of my culture - these lines are part of my terms of reference - when thinking about light, and water, and the origins of life. I cannot help that - however unfashionable it might seem.It was my starting point. So lets see where this little meditation leads us.

1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2: And the earth was without form, and void; 

and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Harsh light - staring into the sun reflected over the Ocean.

4: And God saw the light, that it was good: 

and God divided the light from the darkness.

Looking out to see, with the sun-light to my left. Morning light at its best

9: And God said, 

Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, 

and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10: And God called the dry land Earth; 

and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:

and God saw that it was good.

  This Pelican and I agree - 

IT IS GOOD!

Natural light, tweaked a little in processing the contrasts.

Whether it was done the way Genesis says ???

Well, that is not my view.

Lets move on. 

This is already a long-enough "Photo Essay" anyway.

Near the coast, beyond the dunes and the tea-trees, are hills which trap the rain. That produces features like the Mumbulla Falls, and the stream below the falls.
The sign explaining the significance of the "Sacred Waterhole" has been vandalised (stabbed through with a heavy duty hunting knife, in fact) but fortunately someone photographed it before it was damaged. You can read the sign here.
I recommend reading the full story, for it has echoes of the very things I am discussing here, in my Blog essay. 

Mumbulla Falls - seen from the viewing platform above.

Click to enlarge the image to see the details.

Mumbulla Falls (pink granite rock) and the "Sacred Waterhole"

Immediately beneath these falls was a fast running stream, 

where the bubbles I showed yesterday were found. 

In the same pool was an Eel - 

very hard to see because of the distortion of light and water. 

 

But alive it most certainly was -

swimming left and right

in this fast running water.

Light and water create everything we see.

Further down the stream there was a quiet pool 

where I was able to take this "reflection shot".
The  people were standing across the pool from me, and higher up
on the next rock ledge.
The image has been inverted, otherwise it would not make sense
at the casual glance.

Reflections in a quiet pool at Mumbulla Falls

This Striped Marsh Frog 
was nearly a victim of its love of water.
 This little frog was unable to escape 
from the steep-sided Dog Bowl.

But David liberated it.

I could not resist the image, though.
Light and dark, water and light together.

(Click to enlarge image)

Further back from the coast,

one finds dark rainforest patches, in deep gullies.

Such sites are perfect for the Coachwood Tree. 

For reasons I do not understand the Coachwood always has patches 

of soft grey-green colour, 

(which I always enjoy looking at), 

which seems to come from a microscopic lichen.

My eye was taken by the colour contrast 

offered by the single bright red berry of the Morinda vine 

against the grey green lichenised bark, 

and the moss growing on the Coachwood.

Click to enlarge the image.

Back into the light and water.

Here is a young male Fur Seal seen at Wagonga Inlet, Narooma.

The seals normally reside at Montague Island, 

but some have taken to life in the Wagonga Inlet, 

where they hang around the boat ramps 

and fish cleaning tables, waiting to be fed.

With the size of these animals, 

and the numbers of little children who like to watch

the seals and rays feeding

there is a potential accident waiting to happen at Narooma.

There need to be warning signs erected, 

and common-sense behaviour guidelines observed.

Make no mistake - 
this doe-eyed seal is a powerful wild animal.

Fur Seal, trying to "con" fishermen into feeding it with fish carcasses.

And my final piece in this 
photo essay about "light".
 Here is a near-perfect Spiderweb

(seen in the early-morning light, of course).

(Click to see the details in the web)

This spider is possibly the "Bush Orb Weaver", 

judging largely by its web shape, 

and the fact that the Spider was quite small, 

and its web was very delicate. 

It was clearly was not one of the much larger Orb Weaver spiders

whose webs are very strong, 

(and often golden in colour - which this definitely was not).

Those webs can be quite scary when one walks through them

and then (shock horror) discovers that 

one is carrying the large spider on your chest.

This little spider was safely left undisturbed.

Possibly a Bush Orb Weaver (Araneus eburnus)

 Fortunately, I was able to avoid 

this gorgeous little Orb Weaver.

I left her in peace, delicately weaving her web

producing the silken web with her spinnerets 

and positioning it with her back legs.

Spider webs are 

some of the finest textures

we can see with our poor human eyes.

Insects and spiders, of course, would find that laughable.

But it comes back to my point about light.

 Walking towards the early-morning sun 

I could easily discern the spiders web

catching the light on the fine fibres.

But when returning to the car, 

(with my back to the sun)

I had to be very careful to remember where the web was located

or else I would have walked straight through it

without seeing a thing.

Spiders, Plants, Frogs, Seals, Birds 

all depend on 

Light and Water;

Air and Earth.

We need to treasure these elements

lest we lose everything.

This is our role in the universe

to be the custodians.

We risk being the destroyers instead.

Let us learn from observing

the importance of light and water.

What's wrong with this photo?

This had me puzzled, one day last week.

I was out in the bush, above the Macquarie Pass.
You can now appreciate the height of the cliff face above the road below.

Here is the original puzzling image in close-up.

.
.
.
.
.

check out the lower image
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Here is the answer.
This tall Leucopogon lanceolatus was growing over the rock
on which the moss was growing.

This is one "heath" plant which is happy to grow in tall wet forest
(on sandstone).
This one was within metres of the sandstone cliff edge,
but it is one of the wettest parts of the Illawarra Escarpment.
Of course, the drainage and wind exposure
would compensate for the heavy rainfall.

But, in this region, the Leucopogons are heath plants
found more commonly on dry, shallow sandy soil.
.
.
.
.
.
.

So, that was what was wrong with the photo.
.
.
.
The flowers had fallen base-down, as the base of the flower is heaviest.
So it looked as if the flowers were growing from the moss.
But mosses do not have "flowers".
.
.
.
Imagine each tiny white flower as a shuttlecock.
As each flower falls from the tall shrub above,
the bottom (heavy) part of the flower
adjusts itself to fly through the air first.
And so, the wider, more wind-resistant part of the flower follows.
So each flower ends up looking as if it is growing out of the moss.

An all green Chiloglottis !

Is this an oddity, a colour break, a "partial-albino"? I do not exactly know.

Today I found a small colony of Chiloglottis growing in a damp area under a Melaleuca squarrosa thicket in a creek-bed. The area is on a sandstone plateau, and surrounding the creekbed thicket is dense Eucalypt forest and Proteaceous shrubbery. Outside of the thicket is a dense surrounding growth of coral fern. Parts of the thicket are permanently wet (creekbed) with Sphagnum Moss beds. Other areas are simply thick beds of leaf mulch from the Melaleuca trees above. So, what we have is a dense, dark and wet creekbed. At ground level, the shade is probably rated at about 70% shade cover.

In an area about 200 metres from this site,(across the road, in the same creek) is a similar thicket, where there is less leaf mulch, and the creek has a fine mud base. Over there Chiloglottis sylvestris grows. But having just inspected those plants, immediately before finding these plants I could immediately see these were different. The standard C. sylvestris plants have all now closed their flowers, following pollination. These plants appear to be a little larger than the regular C. sylvestris plants, but they are totally green, whereas the regular plants have stems and flowers which are reddish-purple, with black and purplish-red "glands". These plants are all green. Even their glands are green, but in different shades of green.
I have only photographed a single flower, but there is a second flowering plant, which is just opening. It is also going to be fully green.

Examining the shape of the glands in close detail it is apparent that these have the same shape and "distribution" on the labellum as C. sylvestris, but they are lacking the dark pigment. Also, in this flower, there are no dark spots on the base of the column (the tall part of the flower holding the pollinia). This may be contrasted with the lower photo of C. sylvestris (below).
Here is a similar angled view of the labellum and glands of one of the regular C. sylvestris plants from across the road, 200 metres further down the same creek.
This next view shows the regular C. sylvestris in profile, with the glands highlighted, appearing almost transparent. The shape of the main callus (gland) is not divided in the "head", unlike C. reflexa and C. seminuda, both of which occur in the Robertson region, but which prefer drier habitats in Eucalypt forest over sandstone soils.So, on the basis of the shape and distribution of the glands on the labellum of today's plant I conclude that these plants are a green variant of Chiloglottis sylvestris. But it is noteworthy that, although separated by only 200 metres from the other plants, and in a slightly different habitat (moss and leaf mould, instead of a muddy creekbed) these plants are flowering a full month later than their neighbours.

*****

This morning I received the following note from Alan Stephenson, of the Illawarra Branch of the Australasian Native Orchid Society:

• Congratulations you have found an alba form of C. sylvestris. "Alba" normally means white but the same genes which produce white flowers also produce green flowers and they are considered the same. Last year I found an alba form of Nemacianthus caudatus and I have also found an alba form of Eriochilus cucullatus. Most species can produce an alba form but these are not common, although I have seen quite a few alba flowers of Glossodia major and Glossodia minor but never a Chiloglottis. The more you look the greater variety of flower types you will find.

I like Alan's concluding point - the more you look the more you will find..... So true, and such a thrill to find something unusual like this.

Denis

Greenhoods galore in Macquarie Pass rainforest.

Within the rainforest, just about 5 Km east of Robertson, in the Macquarie Pass area, there were many Greenhoods flowering today. Some were plants which I have not seen before. Obviously they are winter flowerers. Today they were flowering in the drizzle.

The first ones I found were a large group of Pterostylis hildae. They were growing in a sheet of a kind of moss (I think) which resembles a miniature conifer forest.

Here is a close-up of the front of Pt. hildae. Its tonue is clearly visible. The tip of the hood is pinkish-brown. The lateral sepals (which form the "sinus" in front of the flower) are widely spread. The tips of those sepals (the "ears") are wide spread, and not held high.
Here is Pt. hildae seen from the side.

In this photo below, you can see the rear of a flower of Pt. hildae, with another species of Greenhood, which is smaller, and much darker, with high-held "ears" or "points". Its hood is flattish on top, but quite pointed and fine. It is a very different plant from the other Greenhood.Here is a front-on view of the dark Greenhood. It has a small tongue (barely visible), a deeply notched "sinus" in the front of the flower, and widely spread "ears" or "points". At this stage, my identification of this flower is uncertain, but it might be Pt. pedunculata, which is known as the "Maroonhood".

I am seeking advice from an Illawarra orchid expert to seek to identify this plant positively, and another plant of which I have not yet published the photos. But I thought I would start with the Pt. hildae photos, which I was fairly confident of.

As with previous postings, I am always prepared to accept further advice, when it comes to identifying these plants.

Creeks behind Fountaindale Road

Narrow creek cutting
Down in the tall Eucalypt forest, below Fountaindale Road is a track which leads to a deep creek.

Today Jim showed me the way across the creek, via a steep, but passable, set of rock steps. Above this crossing point is a still pool called "Lorna Doone's Pool" - something straight out of my childhood reading.






Moss covered rocks
The creeks above this wonderful pool rush down through a series
of very narrow crevices, between moss-covered rock faces.

In some places, these cuttings were 15 metres deep, but they were too hard to photograph with any perspective.







Still pool, above the cascades
Further up the creek, the ground levels out and a still pool mirrors what little light was shining this afternoon.






Jim stepping across the creek
At a shallow point, we could easily step across the little creek.







A Moss Garden
Having crossed the creek, we went thougha patch of TeaTree Scrub, and found this wonderful little Moss Garden, in a small, open glade.

The Nature of Children's Graves - bulletin 2

There is a lovely, elegant grave in the the Robertson Cemetery, where a child of 5 weeks and 2 days has been laid to rest. As with all children's graves, it is quite small.

This grave is moderately old (1925), and it is in a partially overgrown corner of the cemetery.

It is my favourite grave.

*****

Stairway to Heaven?

The grave is covered with a series of moss-covered stone slabs, each one rising over the one below. There are just 3 levels visible, but possibly another is now covered by soil.

To me, this appears to represent a series of steps - possibly the symbolic "Stairway to Heaven" (see Genesis 28: 10 - 15). This refers to Jacob's dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

It is otherwise known as "Jacob's Ladder".



These days, the symbolism of "Stairway to Heaven" is totally debased, owing to the over-riding influence of the Led Zeppelin song of the same name, with very un-religious connotations. (see the full lyrics here).

Not everybody agrees with my interpretation, indeed some people think the slabs have sunk, naturally, over time. But I am convinced that the grave was built this way.

*****

The text of the Headstone

In

loving memory of

Joseph Dixon

beloved infant son of

Thomas and Frieda

Dillinger

Died April 29, 1925

Aged 5 weeks & 2 days

Our little darling

has gone to

rest.