A fairy tale morning in Robertson.

I told you it would be white! It was like a fairy tale morning in Robertson.
The freak weather conditions of snow, sleet and rain, followed closely by a hard frost, made for some gorgeous images of "snice" on leaves and flowers. It also serves to give me a new weather word - "Snice" A combination of snow and ice. It sounds better that the ugly word "snost".

It seems there was not just rain which fell, and froze, which is what I thought last night. People told me today that there was snow and sleet as well as some rain. This is evident in the granules visible on the lower levels of the windscreen of my little blue car. It obviously did fall as crystals, not drops of rain - which would not build up like that.

Here is Lena - looking cold - on the frozen driveway.

The ice on the water in a spare Rubbish Bin shows you it was pretty cold. Ice crystals always make for pretty images - no matter how mundane the container is.

"Snice" on Sasanqua Camellia leaves
- with the first rays of sunlight just touching the leaves.

"Snice" on Polyscias sambucifolia leaves."Snice" on Wattle leaves (Acacia fimbriata "dwarf")

"Snice" on Acacia flower stem
Close-up of "snice" on Acacia flowers.

Of course, such fairytale crystals do not last long in Robertson. I knew it would be worth looking out for, so I set my alarm for an early start. I then went back to bed to warm up, and to recover from a very long night on the computer. I have today posted an important submission on the Kangaloon Aquifer. More about that later.

Bright Moment in a freezing cold day

The wind was blowing ice crystals across the garden this afternoon. Some of them landed on the deck, for a few minutes. Not real snow, but close enough for my liking.
I went outside to capture the image of the large particles of ice making diagonal lines across the garden (unsuccessfully). But Lena came with me, and she stood there wondering why she had been enticed outside. Actually, she always accompanies me when I go outside, in case we are going somewhere, but alas, not, today. But she stood there, leaning into the freezing wind. At least she is adequately rugged up for it.She decided to pose for this image, wagging her tail, optimistically, while waiting for me to tell her if we were going in the car. (Another of life's disappointments for Lena.)
Then I went to check to the view to the south of the house, and noticed this male Golden Whistler, looking beautiful in the afternoon light.
He did not stay there very long, as he and his female companion were busy searching for insects amongst the open, deciduous trees and shrubs. You can see his wings beating, just as he starts to fly off - but his head and feet are stationary.
One bright moment on a freezing day.

Pizzas in the Mists? - ooops - Gorillas in the Swamps

I am able to report that this morning, we briefly had "lumpy rain", at about 5 degrees Celsius. Not quite "mist" but close enough to justify this headline. Visibility 200 metres. Cold and wet. Large diagonal stripes in the image are the wet hail or sleet, or what I call "lumpy rain".
My heading, of course is a pun on the wonderfully named "Pizzas in the Mist" restaurant here in Robertson, and the second bit is a reference to a famous Movie, in case you didn't work that out.

I am indebted to James Woodford's wonderful weekly blog update at "realdirt.com.au" for this advice about an important story about a relatively recently discovered population of Western Lowland Gorillas *** in the Republic of Congo. That country is NOT the much larger and less environmentally safe Democratic Republic of Congo - as is explained by Fran Kelly's guest, who makes a slight correction to her introduction, as you will hear if you follow the link below).

Back in the dark ages (late 1960s) when I was a theological student in Rome, and a room-mate of a young Prince from the Congo (I kid you not) this country was known as Congo Brazzaville, and the other bigger and more dangerous one was called Congo Kinshasa. That latter country became known as Zaire under its tyrannical ruler, President Mobutu, but has since returned to being known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If you read both those two Wikipedia links you will realise that my comment "more dangerous" is a relative term.

By the way, I have not heard of or from my former room-mate, Joseph Nyeme, in 40 years. He did write to me in 1969, from Rome. I fear he has long since been "silenced". I have never done a full Red Cross missing persons search, but he does not appear in any Internet searches which I have conducted.

Anyway, I have digressed.

******

Thanks to James Woodford's blog link taking me to the ABC's Radio National website, I was able to listen to Fran Kelly's interview about the discovery of a colony of some 125,000 Western Lowland Gorillas living in a wet, swampy rainforest. It seems they have survived the "bushmeat" trade, because of the difficulty of accessing their habitat. Long may they remain - safe and wet, in there.

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What's in a name?

*** The Western Lowland Gorillas rejoice in the scientific name: "Gorilla gorilla gorilla".
That us scientific jargon for "Watch out: I think there's a Gorilla behind that bush!"

This is more impressive, but no more explanatory than the unimaginative "Rattus rattus" (which you can guess) or my other favourite scientific name, "Crex crex" - the European bird called the "Corn Crake" - a type of marsh bird in the Rail family (can you guess what its call is like?). Those early biologists were not very imaginative in their names.

If you don't know what a Gorilla is, then saying it 3 times doesn't actually explain anything to the unwary naturalist, but, in this case, I can see that it might just add a sense of urgency. Especially if it is said like this:
Gorilla - Gorilla - GORILLA.

The unimaginative scientific names for animals is a theme which Nick Rheinberger has wittily explored in his current article in the local Southern Highlands magazine: "Your Times" published Wednesday 6 August 2008. Have a read - its right at the back of the "Your Times" magazine.