It's a Sign

A minor miracle occurred in my backyard during the week, well, I thought it was anyway. Add to what was an exceptionally wet winter after a very long dry spell, bursts of sunshine and more rain, a veritable forest of miniature fungi erupted in the lawn. What would normally appear in autumn turned up in the week of the spring equinox, not just scattered haphazardly here and there mind you, but following some pre-ordained pattern just for my delight. Have seen a few toadstool rings in my time, red capped holiday resorts for fairies, but this little phenomenon had me so fascinated I couldn’t help but wax lyrical.

It’s a sign, it’s a sign

of what I know not.

What does it mean

this number three?

Is it a puzzle

to tantalise me?

Three days to go

till my mind can see

three weeks, three months,

three years maybe

until this sign is revealed to me?

Far stranger things

than what I now see

have been hidden in grass

or shrub or tree

But I’m not always there

to witness these things

that sneak in unseen

on legs or wings.

So as my garden erupts

in a fungal invasion

I’m leaning towards

the fairy persuasion

Not just a village, but a great city block

has taken root, now you might mock.

But those little teeny weeny folk

who move around an awful lot

Holiday here and move on there

As a roof appears just out of nowhere.

They’re nomadic little creatures

Finding shelter where they can

following the seasons

but sometimes without reason

they turn up when least expected

Flitting here and scurrying there

And oh, I’m just delighted

I could sit for hours and stare.

So it’s a mystery

this number three.

What does it mean

what can it be?

A springtime anomaly

put here in my yard

to bamboozle me.

Will it grow or will it go?

I haven’t a clue

I really don’t know.

Do I intervene

or leave it to fate?

Or do I simply sit and wait

till it becomes

a number eight.

Have done a daily check to see how everyone was fairying, um, faring, but this morning, shock horror, all there was to show for this anomaly was a mass of fungi stalks, each and every one beheaded. As I pulled down the blind just before sunset last night I noticed a wallaby grazing in the backyard, nothing unusual about that, but with free range mushroom available a la carte he obviously couldn’t resist.

Darn it all, no more fairies at the bottom of the garden.

The Male of the Species

Superb Blue Wrens would have to be my favourite small bird, along with Scarlet Robins, which have just started making an appearance of late. Such beauty and energy all wrapped up in this tiny little ball. The males show off their vibrant colours while their much plainer female partners and progeny hover around and follow them faithfully, giving them pride of place.

Generally, unlike we humans who place such emphasis on the female body beautiful, in the animal world by and large it is the males who grab all the attention. Now I guess there’s a perfectly good reason for that, for if they weren’t adorned in such an irresistible manner, I guess the females might simply go about their own business without giving them the time of day, therein putting the reproduction of the species somewhat in jeopardy.

So, they primp and preen and squawk and scream and roar to draw attention to themselves, but as we in humanland can attest, things don’t always go as planned in the pursuit of a partner.

Picture if you will one of the most demonstrative of birds, the peacock, in abundance at Cataract Gorge in Launceston. I imagined the interaction going something like this……..

Ok folks, while I have your undivided attention, let me show you how it’s done.

Approach her directly, no messin’ about, declare your intentions up front. No mixed messages, no ambiguity, leave no room for doubt.

Hi there sweetie, watcha doin? Wanna come back to my place and check out my scratchings?

What? Did someone say something?

Come on now, don’t look away, don’t be coy. Here….watch….I’ll do the shimmy shimmy shake for you….not bad eh?

Oh, typical. So obvious. Whatever happened to subtlety? Might impress this lot but you’re gonna have to try another tack fella.

Come on love, they’re all watchin’, can’t hold these things up forever you know. Don’t leave me hangin’ out here to dry…turn around…please?

You don’t really think I’m going to respond in front of this lot do you? Would’ve got a lot further with a simple ‘Hi’ when no one was looking, but no, you just have to go the whole hog don’t ya.

Blimey, what’s a bloke supposed to do.

 

Ok, I give up, plenty more birds of a feather in the old stamping ground to choose from eh?

 

Hmm, cute backside, shame about the ego. Don’t let on I checked him out.

Hitchcock Revisited

Could the airing of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds the other night on TV been a warning? A prophecy? A seasonal anomaly? A magnet sent out on the airwaves to the air currents?

Whatever it was the currawongs have gone crazy. As in Hitchcock’s thriller they’ve been gathering, in small numbers at first, following me down the street and crisscrossing from one tree to the next, congregating in the backyard in groups of a dozen or more, giving me the dare you stare as they perch on the clothes line, fence and shed and strut around the yard as if they own the place.

Seeing The Birds as a young teenager scared the living daylights out of me and caused me to adopt a certain attitude and respect for that rather large beaked sleek black ornithological predator. The currawongs might not be quite as big as their crow cousins but those beaks look just as sharp, and the population has been gradually increasing until something set them off today throwing us into what sounded like a Hitchcock sequel.

Congregating down on the golf course they took off in groups, circling here, there and everywhere around the village, wave after wave, probably about a hundred in all, landing in yards, trees, perching on fences, houses and wherever they liked, all the time screeching and squawking, going totally off their face. I was fascinated, had to follow them, but as in The Birds the “attack” for want of a better term lasted only a few minutes as they eventually decided to leave us alone and head into the bush. 

Despite their bravado and safety in numbers they did tend to be somewhat camera shy, so the photo doesn't do the event justice. Will be interesting to see if they return tomorrow and continue their onslaught, or whether they meet up with more of their kind and go further afield to lay siege on some other poor unsuspecting neighbourhood.

The Grinning Mountain

Don’t you just love the quirkiness of Nature? I’m sure there are moments when Nature conspires to take us by surprise when we’re least expecting it. Put up the blind this morning after a yucky rainy day yesterday to see the mountain covered in snow. Hadn’t realised it was that cold, I mean we are into the last month of Spring after all, but then again this is Tasmania, so with camera in hand thought I’d head out to see if I could get a decent shot.

Didn’t have to go far. Heading for the bush, there staring down at me, taking me completely off guard, was the biggest, craziest grin. Cracked me up. I was tossing up whether the mountain was laughing at us mere mortals below who’ve been wondering when Spring would really show itself and give us a bit more warmth, or whether it was beckoning us to come and play.

By the sound of the steady stream of cars heading up the mountain, I think many must have forsaken their normal routine and responded to the call, a good choice I reckon.

Whether an untimely fall of snow, spectacular sunrise or sunset, invigorating bushwalk, cascading waterfall, the beautiful aroma as I mow under the lemon scented eucalypt, the greeting of a blue wren on my window sill while having my morning cuppa, an echidna who’s ventured far off course and is exploring my backyard, these things and countless more bring a smile to my face.

They take me out of my rigid little world of seemingly important things that insist on being done, and remind me there is a crazy creator out there who delights in giving us pleasure, who wants us to relate to him, and if he has to smile down at me from the mountain to get my attention, well, I guess that’s just the way he’s going to do it.

Unnatural Selection

 Interesting walk in the bush this morning. Disturbed a wallaby who scurried off quick smart, a deer appeared on the track, stared straight at me then literally BARKED at me in obvious indignation before taking off, an echidna waddled through the undergrowth quite unperturbed until he spotted me and hid his face in the hope that because he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see him. Butterflies followed me wherever I went, a lovely experience, and then there was this.

Now, I would’ve thought it would be deeply ingrained in each seed pod’s DNA that from the moment it makes its momentous once in a lifetime descent from the place of its birth to that of its death, it would know what to do.

Maybe not, for this Mummy Wattle was working overtime and flagrantly disregarding all laws of nature. Either she was being somewhat over protective or over controlling, but whatever it was she was going all out to ensure her progeny were to be the chosen ones who would rise to the top of the heap and carry on the species.

Today the bush, tomorrow the world!