A New Year and sunset fireworks over Taputeranga

We had a week of uninterrupted warm summer weather with clear blue skies and almost no wind - the latter rather disturbing for Wellingtonians, accustomed as we normally are to plenty of air movement!  The first day of 2016 was hot and sunny - but wet weather was coming down from the north.  So by the time of sunset the sky over Taputeranga (the island of Island Bay), looking to the South Island in the distance, was dramatic.  It reminded me somewhat of the fireworks of New Years eve.

Another year has begun with all the beauty and drama of nature.  And I remember why I am doing this. 

I see the environment as a source of endless delight as well as being the source of our sustenance, and I want to share with you my love for and interest in the world of living things.  This is our world - we are part of it and we rely on it.  If we care about our future, we must care for our environment - see it, appreciate it, learn about it, and work on being good guardians.  We can all do this if we own our responsibility and power.

In the words of one of my heroes, Wangari Maathai, (who founded the Green Belt Movement which has planted more than 10 million trees) "You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them."

Hot air or the winds of change - is there the will to limit climate damage?

Wellington is a very windy place - often described as the windiest city in the world because we "enjoy" the highest average wind speed through the year.  Other places get more extreme winds at times, or are windy more of the time but we trump them with an average wind speed of 16 knots (29.6 km/hr or 18.4 miles/hr), and an average of 173 days in the year above 32 knots (59.3 km or 36.8 miles/hr), and 22 days over 40 knots (74.1 km or 46 miles/hr).  We have been having a lot of gales in the last few months.

At least the wind means that the clouds are interesting (albeit sometimes disturbing) - like these rainclouds over Baring Head, dwarfing the ferry coming in to Wellington Harbour,

or these ones creating patterns of light before dumping the rain.

Maybe the wind does create interest, and the illusion that we are polluting the air less than we are (it all gets blown away!) but it can also be very damaging, tiring and frustrating.  Grrr.  So the thought of more extreme weather is not welcome.  But that is what we face.

The 2015 Paris Climate Conference is under way.  The goal is a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.  Way back in 1992, at the Rio Earth Summit, the UN Framework on Climate Change was adopted - a framework for action to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”   We have not done well.  New Zealand has done particularly badly.  Our overall contribution of greenhouse gases is relatively small because of our small size.  Our politicians hide behind this and they are full of excuses - an attitude exemplified by our Prime Minister John Key that many of us find shameful.

The damage that we humans have already done means that we face increasingly extreme weather.  The way that our politicians are dealing with this (denial, pretending to be doing something, exhorting others to act while failing to do so) gives me even more concern.  Just how bad do things have to get before they walk the walk as well as talk the talk (so often a lot of hot air)?

It is not going to be easy.  In trying to work together to care for our planet we humans will need to navigate a lot of differences - it is tough terrain, like the rocky and often stark landscape of Wellington's south coast.  But the water, atmosphere, and living communities of planet earth are changing irreversibly.  Time is running out.  We cannot be complacent. The sun is setting on what we have taken for granted.  The analogy of sunset implies there is a sunrise too.  I think there is hope - we can act.

Lighting up our lives - evening light at Nikko

When the human world seems full of ugliness and my mood is dark, I find it helps to look to the light - our gift from the sun, the source of our energy and life on earth.  "Lit up" is a way of describing the feeling of being energised and encouraged, and that is my experience.

It is very easy to be reminded that life on this planet is about much more than us - wherever we are, we can just look around and see, if we dare.  But human folly means that we keep making so many lives (human and other) miserable despite having this wonderful planet as our home, we keep causing suffering through the harm we do to each other and to our environment.  The earth offers us so many opportunities for awe, delight, fascination, curiosity, discovery, pleasure, and creativity - just from being here.  If we regularly take these opportunities we might find a much more life affirming perspective than the current world mood seems to be.

On my recent visit to Nikko I enjoyed one of these dramatic moments - an opportunity for delight.  I emerged from Rinno-ji (a temple with a beautiful garden) to see the trees on the hills beyond lit up by the early evening light.

And in front of me was a golden Japanese maple, framed by pine and cryptomeria (I think), their leaves sparkling and glowing, backlit by the low rays of the setting sun.  A gorgeous arresting sight.  Thank you!

To Japan - and glorious autumn colour (koyo) in Nikko

It is my very good fortune to be visiting a friend in Japan.  I have travelled from the relative cool of spring weather in Wellington to warm weather in Japan (although people here seem to think it is cool) - and some of the autumn colours are very warm too. 

A few days ago I visited Nikko, a small city in the mountains north of Tokyo, famous for World Heritage status shrines and temples in a site of great beauty.  But this time my priorities were elsewhere.  Heading to visit the Nikko Botanical Garden, I saw these Japanese maples in full glorious colour just near Shinyo, the sacred bridge.  (I failed to register the name of the statue-d person.)

It was a gorgeous sunny morning.  The backlighting made the colours really vibrant - and these were not the most vivid that I saw. 

I was one of many many people visiting Nikko that day.  We all go for our own reasons, but I hope that we all came away not only arrested by the beauty of nature, but having some awareness of being part of it and having responsibility towards it - not just the World Heritage site, but our own backyards as well.  The upcoming Paris climate talks come to mind.  Imagine how powerful it would be if we all took action to protect our precious planet from further human-induced damage!

No better place to be - by the Cockayne lawn at Otari

At Otari native plant botanic garden, here in Wellington, there are memorial seats/benches in places of interest and beauty.  As I sit and enjoy them I often wonder about the people who are commemorated and their connection with the place, and I very much hope that they enjoyed the plants as I do.

This seat commemorates Roa Isobel Irons with the words "No better place to be than here with family."  Here by the Cockayne Lawn the family of plants looks bright and inviting with spring colours - scarlet kaka beak and golden kowhai flowers.  And as the days lengthen and warm up, this is a place where families will happily play and picnic.  Indeed there is no better place to be than in the beauty of nature.

Kereru and kowhai at Otari - and it's almost time for the Great Kereru Count

I was fortunate to have a bit of time to get to Otari (native botanic garden) yesterday.  The sun was out, some kowhai were in flower, and it was very peaceful apart from the whoosh whoosh whoosh of kereru flying from tree to tree.  They are such a wonderful sight - their beautiful feathers, and their rather ungainly but often gorgeously plump bodies - like bumble bees, they don't look completely air-worthy.

Two kereru were quite settled in a kowhai tree by the Canopy Walkway - so I got a good view.  (I had somehow messed up the settings on my camera, alas - so my picture taking was not of great quality, but this gives you an idea of the special sight.)

One assumed a classic portrait-of-kereru pose

While the other was doing some gymnastics to reach and eat kowhai flowers.

A happy spring sighting and a happy reminder- it is just about time for the Great Kereru Count.

A pink hyacinth - welcoming spring and nurturing hope

It's the last day of August and the last day of winter (an arbitrary cut off, but there we are) - and it's a cold and grey day so a cheerful pink sweet-smelling hyacinth is very welcome.  Spring is a marvellous time of unfolding growth and regeneration - despite our cold winds.  And here we go again!

I am very grateful that the beauty of nature gives me such joy, and that it reminds me of the complexity and diversity of life, the power of the forces of growth and regeneration.

I feel sad and sick with dread when I see how often we humans deny our interconnectedness - with other people and with all living things.  If we can't cooperate with nature and with each other I'm not hopeful about the kind of future we will have.  But spring is a great reminder - no matter how cold and bleak the winter has been, a small change in the temperature and day length brings a resurgence of life and colour. 

So the message I take from spring is - let's nurture the tender growth of human hope too!

Emerging from winter's gloom - gold lace polyanthus and spring bulbs

It has been cold, windy and wet, as winter should be - but we are beginning to emerge from winter's grip.  Gold lace polyanthus flowers, wet and somewhat bedraggled, light up a corner of the garden in Wellington's colours of gold and black.

And in anticipation of spring, a rather unkempt group of potted bulbs has made a start:

the lemon trumpets of hoop petticoat daffodils - Narcissus Aygarth;  hyacinths - pink and pale yellow;  a warm pink lachenalia;  the pink and white flowers of Oxalis versicolor, resolutely furled up (they only open in decent sunshine) showing the reason they are called "candy cane" oxalis;  and some little blue grape hyacinths.  Behind the pot collection is a particularly lovely rosemary with rich blue flowers and amidst the pots you can see leaves of thyme, parsley, and nasturtium.

Neglected through winter, they are saying to me "get to work, tend us, spring is around the corner."

Guess it's time to comply with their request - garden ho.

Evening at Te Raekaihau Point. Part two - light and colour

Can the sky be bright and leaden at the same time?  That's how it seemed to me, looking westwards from Te Raekaihau point and along the south coast.   There was light cloud over the water but a rather dense carpet of cloud over the land....

There was light cloud over the water but a rather dense carpet of cloud over the land....and, looking the other way, over Lyall Bay. 

It began colouring up quickly.  It was very golden on the skyline, beyond Lyall Bay and the airport. 

A flypast of black-feathered oystercatchers peep peep peeping seemed to emphasise the rich colours of the cloud and sky.

To the west there was a little colour developing, but it was subtle.

But as the sun sank further, behind those hills, the golden colour warmed up the sky on this side too.

I walked along from the Point to Princess Bay, with Taputeranga in the distance in silhoutte against the hills of the south coast.  The wind was making pretty patterns of spray on the cresting waves.  The colours were intensifying.

At Princess Bay I loved the burnishing of gold on the wet sand at the water's edge.

But the sky kept getting more intensely coloured.  I walked along the beach then up along the road above Princess Bay.  Over Houghton Bay, it was best described as - whew! 

A fiery red over the Melrose hills, above Houghton Bay. 

Not hyperbole - it really did look as if it was on fire.  But it was a brief flash.  The rich reds began to fade and were reflected in the darkening sea - the view from above Princess Bay looking to the south.

Back at Te Raekaihau Point I could see landmarks - the South Island in the distance, Taputeranga, the rocky outcrops by Princess Bay - in silhouette against the fading colours and night-falling sky.

A spectacular lightshow from nature - it pays to spend some time and allow things to unfold.

Evening at Te Raekaihau Point. Part one - plants

I was on my way home along the south coast, evening was beginning to fall, and the light and high cloud over Lyall Bay cast a rather eerie atmosphere.  Wanting some quiet, I stopped at Te Raekaihau Point, intending to watch the sky.  Lots of people visit this place, sitting in cars to watch the waves, wandering on the shore, diving, playing, walking dogs, doing photography.  Many "freedom campers" in their vans have visited during summer, but in winter it is much quieter, an attractive bleakness about it. 

It is a great place to view the coast and, after a few years of ecological rehabilitation, to see native plants that cope in tough coastal conditions. 

Looking back to Lyall Bay from the exposed eastern part of the point, where tussock grasses are struggling and only gradually getting established, the cloud seemed to almost fill the sky.

Tangles of green on the edge of the stony beach reveal wind-shaped and stunted taupata (Coprosma repens) with dark glossy leaves curling back to reduce moisture loss, and clambering up its raggedy branches the red stems and brighter green triangular leaves of New Zealand spinach, kōkihi. The leaves of the "spinach" (Tetragonia tetragonioides) are fleshy and taste rather bitter but are a source of vitamin C.  It was used as a vegetable by explorer James Cook, hence its other names - Botany Bay spinach, Cook's cabbage, sea spinach.  The leaves are best blanched to reduce the oxalic acid content before cooking and the youngest leaves are the least likely to cause that weird puckery mouth feel.

The white-flowered alyssum is a garden escape - one of many introduced plants that are too successful and have earned weed status in this setting. 

Only a metre or two further away from the water's edge, a green carpet -Wire vine (Muehlenbeckia complexa) with its bright little round leaves scrambling through the darker more complex leaves of sand piripiri (Acaena pallida). 

The Muehlenbeckia is a very determined little vine - one should take care if planting it in a garden.  Here it is working on smothering a coastal flax plant (Phormium cookianum).  You get an idea of how bleak this area is for plants - restoration plantings are barely holding on, there is a lot of dead vegetation and there are lots of weeds.  Not conventionally pretty. 

Horokaka (Disphyma australe, the native iceplant) growing on shingle and rocks also reminded me of the random messiness of life.  It refused to make a nicely composed image.  But I enjoy the challenge to my eyes - no one place to look.  Ah, nature.

All evidence of the amazing tenacity of adapted plants.  Despite iceplant's feat of growing where no soil is to be seen, I think the most impressive here is the taupata - growing in the rocks hit by the waves.

As I was admiring plants' crazy survival capacities, a little seal emerged from under a taupata tangle and managed to swim between these rocks out to the open water, surfing and diving.  I have never seen one there before.  Alas, I was unprepared and didn't have a long lens on my camera so I didn't get a decent photo - the little black body and flipper just looked like more rocks. 

My attention up till then had been caught by plants but the sky was doing interesting things too - another post methinks.  Even in pretty unprepossessing places there is an abundance of interest and wonder in the natural world if we just open our senses and give ourselves time to connect with it.