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Category: Western Australia

Birds, not bees: Wireless Hill, Spring 2022

Published September 12, 2022 by Pelidoug

Birds, not bees: Wireless Hill, Spring 2022

 

Unsurprisingly, southwestern Western Australia produces many different honeys, each deliciously distinct.

The most prized varieties are produced from rare, endemic species.

However, Western Australia’s southwest also has the world’s highest proportion of flowering plants that do not feed and/or seduce/deceive insect pollinators; these flowers (all, endemic species) favour birds.

(a few rely also/instead on particular, very small, also-endemic mammals)

WA’s floral emblem is bird-adapted.

read moreBirds, not bees: Wireless Hill, Spring 2022
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McGowangrad, winter ‘22: series finale (perpetual flower show)

Published August 31, 2022 by Pelidoug

McGowangrad, winter ‘22: series finale (perpetual flower show)

 

WA’s emblematic flower may be synonymous with Springtime, but it is no slave to the calendar.

Well before Winter 2022’s alleged end, it – and not a few other “iconic”, “Spring-flowering”  WA endemics – were already very evidently flowering in the quasi-natural bushland section of Perth’s Kings Park.

It is an easy walk – or an even shorter free bus trip’s distance – from the CBD.

read moreMcGowangrad, winter ‘22: series finale (perpetual flower show)
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McGowangrad, winter ‘22: #24 in series (“terrible beauty” in another Hollywood)

Published August 30, 2022 by Pelidoug

McGowangrad, winter ‘22: #24 in series (“terrible beauty” in another Hollywood)

 

 

The only Hollywood to have repeatedly appeared in Pelican Yoga is a small but significant piece of remnant bushland, adjacent to Perth’s Karrakatta Cemetery.

Until 19 January this year, the organism pictured above was a fine, living example of a weird, wonderful, and very rare Western Australian Acacia species.

When I photographed a few of its “leaves”, glowing in bright winter light at 2.33 pm on 01 July 2022, it and they were as dead as the many thousands of entombed persons, nearby.

read moreMcGowangrad, winter ‘22: #24 in series (“terrible beauty” in another Hollywood)
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McGowangrad, winter ‘22: #23 in series (Australasian grebe, Lake Monger)

Published August 29, 2022 by Pelidoug

McGowangrad, winter ‘22: #23 in series (Australasian grebe, Lake Monger)

 

As is often true of Tachybaptus novaehollandiae, our hero/ine was repeatedly disappearing and re-emerging.

Every time s/he resurfaced, the excellence of his/her feathers’ water-repellence was readily apparent.

Incidentally, as highly responsible parents, Australasian grebes sometimes eat their own feathers; click here to discover precisely why they do so.

read moreMcGowangrad, winter ‘22: #23 in series (Australasian grebe, Lake Monger)
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McGowangrad, winter ‘22: #19 in series (WorkZone, accidental Abstractionist)

Published August 27, 2022 by Pelidoug

McGowangrad, winter ‘22: #19 in series (WorkZone, accidental Abstractionist)

 

 

“Western Australia’s first carbon neutral commercial building” is also an occasional abstract artist!

These “artworks” have a shorter lifespan than any “street art” produced by Banksy, anonymous graffitists, et al.

They can be highly surprising, truly beautiful.

They are visible – indeed, there at all – only when the pedestrian passing by, the sun, the building’s aluminium tube shade screen, and the building-proper’s sun-facing exterior are all in “Goldilocks” alignment.

read moreMcGowangrad, winter ‘22: #19 in series (WorkZone, accidental Abstractionist)
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