Disruption - a film with a message for all of us

I invite you to watch a film that reminds us how our carelessness and head in the sand attitude is threatening the future of human life on this good earth - Disruption

Although it is focusing on the action and march - the People's Climate March - to be held in New York on September 21, the information in this film is salient for all of us and from now on.  I don't like scare tactics, but this isn't to scare us, just to face the reality and the challenge that this poses for all of us. 

I often wonder - what does it take for us to stop our leaders and our economies having such short-term and money-focused vision?  My hope is that we love our lives, and the children of now and the future, enough to stop the harm that is being done to all of life here on earth.

That spring feeling - lemon hose-in-hose Primulas and golden kowhai

This form of Primula flower has been around for a long time - it was first recorded in John Gerard's 1597 herbal.  The impression of one identical flower within another is due to a mutation where the calyx of the Primula flower is transformed into a second petaloid structure.  The name likens the appearance of the flower to the way Elizabethan gentlemen used to wear their stockings (hose) - one inside the other with the outer stocking turned down - hence hose-in-hose.  I think it is a charming curiosity, and the fresh yellow is a sunny treat for this first day of spring (arbitrary I know, but it is the first of September).
 

It is, as the name suggests, a flower from the Northern Hemisphere. 

Our New Zealand native golden harbinger of spring is the kowhai and suddenly, it seems, flowers are beginning to emerge.  At present they make a very dramatic contrast against the bare branches of the trees as the leaves are yet to open.

A happy sight for humans and hungry tui alike.

Narcissus Spring Sunshine - and the sun is out, though it isn't yet spring

How lovely it can be when it is sunny after a period of greyness.  Today there were just a few clouds - classic cotton wool-like cumulus all white and fluffy against the bright blue sky.  Spring bulbs are in flower although strictly it is not yet spring.  But Narcissus Spring Sunshine is in full golden splendour.

The lemon yellow petals contrast with the orange cups.  Three to five flowers bunch together on each stem, their petals overlapping.  They give a sense of exuberance and abundance - spring is almost here!

Grey-blue mood - a misty softness over the Orongorongos

Clouds and rain were coming and going, and the cloud-softened headland looked like a breaking wave,

the actual water from Island Bay across to Baring Head was calm and subtly patterned by the currents. 

Later the clouds over Baring Head and the Orongorongos were more defined, a misty shower evident.

I find that even when weather is "bad" (meaning not as warm and sunny as we light-responsive humans would like it to be) it can also be beautiful.  And it is life-enhancing, unlike a lot of human behaviour (especially current political behaviour.)  To me this grey-blue atmosphere was soothing, not a cause to be down in the dumps. 

A right pair - oystercatchers doing their thing at Island Bay beach

Bold and stylish, their orange beaks and eye rings contrasting with glossy black feathers, and quietly determined in attitude, two variable oystercatchers (Haematopus unicolor) spied wading and foraging along the Island Bay shoreline in the late afternoon sun.

These are impressive birds - they tend to couple for life and to stay in the same territory.  And despite the human presence and disruption around them, they just seem to keep going about their lives - we are a bit of a nuisance, but they are undeterred.