Thu 07.Jan.2010
Rhodes Town, Greece
Today's pictures center around the wonderful low-angled winter light,
and the local flora, plus a little faunum who flutters through near the
end.
They are all from inside the old city, or from the green strip just
outside the medieval moat.
Grass.
You just can't discourage the stuff, at least while it has enough rain
to support it. This spread is growing in the cracks of a major sidewalk.
North of the Alps. grass is more of a summer thing, when the weather is
warm enough for it to grow. Here, as in California, grass is a sign of
winter.
If these trees don't speak for themselves, nothing I can say will help.
I dunno whether these wispy tendrils are part of the tree, or some
aerophyte that just uses the tree as a place to hang.
This particular clump looks to me like the outline of a
thunderbird. Probably a residual effect of 1960's college entertainment.
Obiter dictum:
If Europe wants to be a culturally more enjoyable place, they should ban
all playing of Hotel California
for a few years.
It is the Stairway To Heaven of our time: in-ever-lovin'-escapable in
every country I've visited, ever since I started these wanderings. Give
it a rest, folks!
I have loved these little seasonal weeds ever since I was a kid. Each
of those spikes is a cluser of five smaller spikes, stuck to a central
stem.
Eventually, as the spring progresses, the subspikes dry, and each one
coils up, pulling it off the central stem and propelling it across the
ground, carrying a seed with it.
On the left, you can see some empty stems whose seeds are already gone.
If you peel a subspike off and hold it in your fingertips, it bends and
dances as it coils up. Wonderful small-scale natural performance art.
This, so help me, is the first time
I've ever seen dates on the hoof on the ground.
Aren't monarch butterflies cute? Hard to get close enough to them for a
good picture though.
I could not have taken this photo with my old camera. The new one has
noticeably stronger zoom (5x instead of 3x), and compensates better for
the loss of light when you zoom way in.
A bougainvilla vine with no flowers on
it.
'Tis the season. They'll be back when the time comes.
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf