2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

What's that blue thing in the pond?

Little routines before settling to work involve stepping out into the garden to feed the fish. But what's that blue thing that looks like a ball or a toy that's fallen in? Oh! it's the head of a rainbow lorrikeet that has somehow fallen into the water. I don't have a working camera, so here's a picture from the web.


I pick up the bird. It's still warm, but clearly dead. Its colours are extraordinary and detailed; its black and green tail feathers elegantly splayed. I turn it over. Its belly is delicately speckled: each feather seems to have several different colours of flame and autumn leaf and blue sky. How did this poor creature come to this untimely end?

Hmm. Last night when I was bringing in the washing, I saw four large black crows in the lemon-scented gum, which the lorrikeets also like. Is this a territorial war in my back garden?

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