Posts by ChrisW
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Not a nomination for BirdOTYear, and lacking sharpness for PhotOTThread, but perhaps worthy for the subcategory of photos taken while seated at one's normal computer seat. Early morning three days ago, and I liked this rear view where its textured colour patches look like a skilled painter's brushwork.
In the family this would be known as a dice duck - a female with the distinctive white head and otherwise more colourful than the male, here atypically just one without its mate. So I point out it's a dice duck, rather than pair o' dice ducks as would more commonly be seen.
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And here's one from about the same date 3 years ago, flowering almost over on karo = P. crassifolium, street planting down the road from me.
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Mmm, Pittosporums. And happens I took my first Pittosporum flower photo of the season earlier this afternoon. This must be the commonest species, kohuhu, P. tenuifolium. The flowers inconspicuous even though out in the open above the leaves in full sun - they're only about 8mm across and so dark-coloured. Scent comes on in the late afternoon, lovely.
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Islander,
Here's the fourth shag species in occupation of the willow log at the foot of my garden - a pair of canoodling pied shags. It was indeed a previous spring and I think I know what they were thinking, but the riverside domestic architecture obviously not to their taste, this is not a nesting ground, no shaggery here.
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Capture: Wellington? Well, I Would., in reply to Islander,
I guess the station was grimy and sooty and grey then, no longer glamorously new, not yet proudly old.
But cleaned up on a bright blue-sky day with the flag flying in the wind, blue and gold Otago colours framing it left and right - I can appreciate it would be accentuating the positive rather than the funereal associations.
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Capture: Wellington? Well, I Would., in reply to Islander,
You're welcome Islander, free to a good home and thanks for the acknowledgement already.
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Capture: Wellington? Well, I Would., in reply to Lilith __,
And the Seddon monument. Hm. I'm sure sometimes a tall column is just a tall column!
Of course, symbolising great achievements and esteem, not ... ahm - the other thought never crossed my mind! :-)
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Capture: Wellington? Well, I Would., in reply to JacksonP,
1906 Dunedin Railway Station in 2010
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Capture: Wellington? Well, I Would., in reply to Lilith __,
Yes I've always understood Harry Holland's monument to be symbolic, to be classical and uplifting and aspirational in some way. He's buried here so this is no more meant to be a direct representation of him than a marble angel is on many another mortal's grave.
But thanks to your nudge, I found in the Evening Post via Papers Past that the monument's symbolism was thoroughly explained on the day it was unveiled -
It symbolises the struggle of primitive mankind to emerge from chaos; at the base of a pedestal are groups of two figures each, male and female, emerging from the rough block—freeing themselves slowly and painfully, but looking up and forward. These figures, together, with the pedestal, form a base which supports a figure of a youth holding in one hand wheat, grapes, and olives and in the other flowers, symbolising the inheritance by mankind of the material and spiritual things of life—that is to say, by the efforts of those who have gone before, mankind is entering into a fuller inheritance. Not content, he, too as his predecessors did, looks up and beyond to still more sublime achievement.
I'd struggled to imagine what those lower figures were doing symbolically, when it seems so obvious they are reaching into nesting burrows for muttonbird chicks or somesuch.
And here in the reverse view from the path, you can see the main figure is indeed looking up and beyond to the still more sublime achievement represented by the much taller monument on Richard John Seddon's grave just a little further up the hill.
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Nora Leggs,
And flying pigeon - but that incidental. Thursday 9am, I was lined up for a hand-held photo of daytime Venus between the more central branch tips of pre-Spring walnut tree as the crescent moon passed nearby on its orbit, when the pigeon flew through the frame more rapidly. So freezing a moment as ships sailing by in the day.
(Venus will show after enlarging the image with a second click.)
