Spring and Abundance.


A week or so ago I was asked “how spring was going in Victoria” and I declared that I did not think that is had really sprung yet. I have taken to calling this time of year “sprinter” – neither spring nor winter, and generally short lived. As last Saturday was the hottest September day on record for Melbourne (Global Warming anybody?) I think it’s now time to call it - spring has arrived.

According to popular myth the minds of young men are supposed to linger on one subject only when spring is in the air – and it’s an unavoidable observation that reproduction is now abounding. While Australian woodlands do not have the dramatic vernal flush of flowers – the hosts of daffodils only occur in manicured gardens and the memory of migrants – the signs of spring are there to be found. In the last few days butterflies have started to appear with regularity – Cabbage White and Yellow Admiral – and dragonflies are hawking over the flower beds. Dragonflies always cause me to wonder if the insects they hunt are subject to stress, as the combination of aquatic nymphs and adult must be some of the most fearsome predators (size for size) that haunt the dreams of prey. In the flowerbeds the product of last spring’s rush to breed are pushing their first leaves through the soil, producing a carpet of green and the bees are living up to their reputation as pollinators of the first order. It would be tempting to think, as many have done, that this show of abundance has no down side, has no implication other then the promise of rich harvests to come.


But as the dragons hawk and hunt and the bees trundle from flower to flower, legs heavy with pollen, the darker side of spring is also on show. The frantic rush to reproduce is everywhere. The vast numbers of flowers, tadpoles, chicks and eggs produced are testament to the unavoidable fact of nature: most of spring’s progeny will die without reproducing. Nature may seem softer at this time of year, but the blood red reality of tooth and claw is the driving force of abundance. The seeds, with their tiny embryo cargoes, will be eaten, the tadpoles will die as the pond dries and the birds and eggs will furnish the needs of cats, possums and birds of sharper beak and claw. If you are young and naïve, it really is dangerous out there.


Evolution has produced abundance to even the odds – the one in one hundred chance to make it though the storm of predation, disease and plain bad luck and to finally breed. Shows of wild flowers do not occur for our appreciation (although they are a genuinely delightful addition), but for the single purpose of survival. If you throw enough of your babies into the front line of conflict, some will survive. Even if it is only one in one hundred, some will get through. If you add variation into the mix as well, the best will get through (more often than not) and low and behold you have evolution.

Spring is in the air, but it’s just as well we are not tuned to the screams of the dying that will inevitably follow. Have a nice day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncertainty.

Image
Public transport is an eavesdropper’s paradise.  Disconnected conversations float along train platforms and down the aisle of trams; past coffee hungry commuters and seat searching straphangers.  Some are fragments of conversations between two present people, some are one sided fragments shouted into smartphones.  Platform One, Mont Albert Station. “Where are you? You said you would be here by eight.” (Inaudible phone noises) “Well, that’s a real shame, but you said you would be here by eight!” (Inaudible phone noises) I look at my watch.  It’s a minute past eight.   Tram Route 109, Whitehorse Road. “I hate this new weather app.” “Why?” “What the @#%^ does ‘10% chance of rain’ mean? I just want to know if it’s going to rain or not! We live in uncertain times. - At low tide a strip of rocks bends from the shore, away from the beach and out towards deeper water.  In places the rocks are slick with weed, in others rough wi
Read more

Garden Variety Birds.

Image
Much can be learned from a single phrase. When a person says “Did you see the report in the paper?” it is clear they assume you know which paper they mean. They mean their paper, the paper they read. And if they ask you about “the paper” they assume you read the same one they do. In this way much can be learned. Much can also be hidden in a single phrase. Many truths can be obscured, many understandings prevented. “Garden Variety” is such a phrase. It means ordinary, humdrum, unremarkable. We get birds in the garden – this in itself is unremarkable – so we get a variety of garden birds. But are they always Garden Variety birds? I think not. To view our garden birds as ordinary, humdrum and unremarkable is to miss the point. It cloaks those birds in a veil, a veil that needs to be lifted. Many garden birds are common in the extreme, they may seen banal because of familiarity. They are never noticed because they are always seen. They are the garden constants. Some birds are noticed beca
Read more

It's been a long, long time.

Image
The last time I was here was 26 years ago. I was in my middle 20s, had only just met the woman who would become my wife and the mother of our children.   It was only the second time I had travelled outside of the British Isles. I had no real idea of what I was doing and absolutely no idea why I was going to India.   And even less idea of what I was going to happen once I was there. On the outside I was there to meet two friends, one I still have and one I have lost.   Nicky – dark haired then – less so now, Scottish, lives in the Lakes with a host of children and (in all probability) a decent whiskey waiting in the cupboard.   Mike? Well that’s a different story. I have no idea where he is.   Sometimes you pick things up and sometimes you put things down.   And sometimes you are put down yourself; put down by somebody when they see no utility in carrying you further.   It turns friendship into an object and conversation into scripted theatre.   It turns friendship into someth
Read more