House guests

Now that the weather is pleasantly warm we open the back window wall of the house in the evenings. This has meant an increase in the number of house guests.
The moth that camouflages with the kitchen tiles:

Our long term guest: the insect who loves the blinds in the lounge room and makes a strumming sound like a cricket in our ears while we watch TV:

One of the most beautiful moths I have ever seen. His camouflage of a new lillipilli or gum leaf was a bit of a waste in our kitchen:

And this house guest who arrived very late last night attracted to the lights in the living room and who couldn't find his way out. He flew around the room bumping his body in the ceiling making a dull thud. He sure is one big moth! He sound of his thumping work me up a few times last night so I was very keen to liberate him from the living room this morning. Not before getting some photos though!

garden wonders

Flowering Lillipilli Casade; the Swamp Banksia with it's massive production of flower candles; a strange cocoon, which feels very light and papery - any ideas?; and the biggest surprise- a stick insect! Maybe Ctenomorpha chronus? suggestions welcome! He was hard to photograph.

UPDATE: the cocoon is a Praying Mantis egg, which will hatch with lots of little nymphs. Thanks R.M for the info! Further update: In this very windy weather we have getting of late the cocoon disappeared.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Vanessa Berry also recently had an very amusing encounter with a stick insect in Sydney.

Hard rubbish #4

I think this was that best pile of hard rubbish for the year.

Ecountered in September on Warren Rd encountered on the way to the supermarket.
Not only was it was probably the biggest pile I have seen in Marrickville this year, but it was the best because I actually gleaned two items, and I especially enjoyed its many clashing patterns.

The 3 stoneware Mikasa plates I took home and the lovely faded draw-lining paper I did not take home.

You can't see the black&white with fluro highlighted pattern shorts and top (with shoulder pads) that I took home and gave to the stylish and vibrant Dionie, but believe me if I was 12 years younger I would have been rocking the retro 80s look.

I also would have taken the painting 12 years ago but I am now in an expelling rather than acquiring phase.

It was a close call but this pile that appeared a few days before Xmas on School Pde was a pretty interesting temporary sculpture too. I did notice that chuck outs increased dramatically in Marrickville in the week before Xmas. Check out the vintage of the TV!

Happy New Year! I hope you have luck with both gleaning and chucking!

for what
in this year's-end market
goes a crow

nani ni kono
shiwasu no ichi ni
yuku karasu

何にこの師走の市にゆく烏　（なににこのしはすのいちにゆくからす）


Basho, Haiku #488

I have been dipping in and out of Basho: The Complete Haiku as my bed time reading this year. I think the short form suits the level of commitment that I can give to anything that is not about post-conceptual or  Australian animal/human relations. The edition I have is a new translation by Jane Reichhold a respected haiku poet as well as translator (with an extensive, but ugly, website).

Each haiku has a small explanation. The following is for #488:

New Year - 1689. It seems Basho was surprised to find himself going off to shop at the end of year like everyone else. He often wore black robes and therefore called himself a crow.

This haiku sums up my feeling at this time of the year. I avoid Christmas for as long as possible then in the end find myself swept up at day or two before buying books for my Haico, an extra present each for my niece and nephew and liquor chocolates for dad.

Before I went to Tokyo, Haico told me that for him the sound of Tokyo was the mocking laugh of the crows echoing and bouncing off the built canyons of the narrow streets. It became one of my sounds of Tokyo too, along with the alternating toy-like squeak or witches squeal of the brown-eared Bulbul.

About 12 months ago a friend told me a Basho haiku that seemed apt, but somewhere between her telling and my remembering, it got scrambled. My memory of it was:

even in Tokyo
longing for Tokyo
the call of the crow

the actual haiku is #658:

even in Kyoto
longing for Kyoto
the cuckoo

Happy end of year.

Hard rubbish #3

On Poetic Objects and Poetic Economies » Fringe Magazine

First time I have tried this "share" thingy

a very good article on letterpress and poem broadsheets

On Poetic Objects and Poetic Economies » Fringe Magazine

Windy Sunday O'Connor ridge

I went back onto O'Connor ridge this morning, mostly because I really enjoyed the walk yesterday and I was hoping to spot the Speckled Warbler again but also because I had neglected to take my camera yesterday. There is one clearing a the top of the first ridge section (climbing up from Dryandra St) where some of the fire trails meet, that seems to have become a graffiti gallery. The first two pictures are two sides of the same tree.

I"m not sure whether this type of eucalyptus sheds its bark, meaning that these pictures will be fall off over the coming months. Given the way that Canberra public space is organised and policed it doesn't surprise me that graffiti artists have taken to painting trees, although I am concerned for the trees health. The large trees could be at least 80 years old and providing nesting hollows for birds and marsupials. 

The wind was blowing pretty hard so I knew it was not going to be an easy day for seeing small birds. In the area that was alive yesterday I only saw one juvenile Red-Wattlebird. In fact the day pretty much belonged to the Crimson Rosellas and Red Wattle birds. Although I walked further this time and came to a grassy area and a family of White-winged Choughs. 

On the way down I heard a familiar repetitive 'kek kek kek' calling of several birds. On the dead tree pictured below, I saw 3 Sacred Kingfisher. The subtlety of their colouring makes my heart sing.

Walk on O'Connor ridge this morning

Birds:
2 Friar Birds gleaning in the flower eucalyptus blossom
Several of solitary sulphur crested cockatoos at various points on the trail- they all seemed to have gather at the park across the road in the evening.
A pair of Crimson Rosellas with 2 green juveniles
A juvenile Dollar Bird perched on the top of a dead eucalyptus squawking (my first sighting of the season)
1 Pied Currawong
I paused for a long time in a mixed feeding flock that was buzzing around in a thicket of small eucalyptus and acacias and identified for sure:
Several beautiful Spotted Pardalotes
A Weebill with a very pink-looking bill
A Buff-rumped Thornbill
Brown Thornbills
A family of Superb Fairy-wrens
and under an wattle a Speckled Warbler - listed as vulnerable in NSW. I think I have only seen one of these birds before ( I don't have my field guide with me.)
3 Galahs flying over on my way down the ridge

Heard but not seen:
Striated Pardalotes
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes
A White-troated Tree-creeper

Animals:

1 feral rabbit
2 Eastern Grey Kangaroos (that link will take you to a website that tells to the best places to see each species, they Mt Ainslie in Canberra! This link will take to the ACT government site that has information on some tracking they are doing on Eastern Greys in urban areas)

2 humans with dogs
1 human sweating on a mountain bike
1 human with a pram and a sleeping baby
1 human in training for mountain climbing
3 wide brim hat wearing retirees

(most bird-links are to the excellent Canberra Birds website)

Sunday surprises #2

I went to check out the Primavera exhibition with Andzrej. This year due to the refurbishments of the museum, it is being held off-site in The Rocks area, with an exhibition in the Bond Store and surrounds. I am not sure whether it really works too well as a show- maybe that is the venue? Or maybe just that Primavera is a show that put together around a group of young artists without too much relation to each other? I enjoyed some works individually, although I think it was not so interesting for show that was at least partly conceived of as working in public space.
The Brown Council have three videos in the exhibition, I can't quiet remember the titles (the wall panels are non-existent which is REALLY frustrating. I had no idea who made all the works...), 2 in the Bond Store and one installed in this historic stone room that looked like it was a laundry at some point as there was some cement and brick troughs on one side of the room.

 The three videos are inter-related with the one installed outside playing on the idea of disappearing ( I just looked it up on their website it's called Disappearing Act.)

There are quiet a few nice things in the work- like the awkward mix of theatrical acting/movement and deadpan performance to carry out the "disappearing act". Its really clear how the artists 'magic' themselves away, and it that way the work opens up the magic of the viewers imagination rather than dazzling us with techno wizardry.

 

The room is not quiet light tight and there are plenty of gaps that let light in. There was a moment in the when the video went to black, which was just before the moment below when each of the four performers came into screen to start walking out backwards.

 Instead of getting a black screen there was an incidental image projected from an accidental camera obscura or the room was a giant pin hole camera. I couldn't work out what the image and was and where it was coming from but, it was a very nice unexpected magical moment.

Sunday surprises #1

This morning the sky told me: