Wheels keep turning
Recently in the tomandzoe.com household there has been a combination of hard work and adventuring. Zoe’s been doing hard work; I’ve been adventuring. I spent Sunday up at Warreker Ck with an honours student, catching an undescribed turtle species. This little one had an algae mohawk, which is seriously cute (although pixellated for some reason)!
This is where these guys live, a potentially crocodile inhabited deep creek. You get in and snorkel around, dive down and chase the turtles through the snags. It’s a little spooky at first. I had a great time sneaking up on the three other guys and grabbing them by the leg.
Actually, it hasn’t been all fun and no work. In fact, today I gave a talk at the Joint Rainforest CRC and CRC Reef conference happening here in Townsville. I spoke about climate change impacts on Wet Tropics freshwater fishes. Brad (my supervisor), Angela (director of the Centre for Riverine Landscapes at Griffith Uni) and the Pauls (Godfrey, my ex-officemate who has recently moved to Cairns to be closer to the Mulgrave; and, Theusen, a fish PhD, also from Cairns, who helped on my first field trip), and Colton (electrofishing expert) are in town. So, lots of talking and planning going on…
We had an early xmas party last week, because everyone is leaving soon for their respective ‘homes’. But, the best thing to happen today was that Kiki got offered a PhD at Max Plank. I’ve also been spending a LOT of time behind my new D50. I’ve been finding it a lot less forgiving than my CP5000, which I’ve just retired, and that I have to work hard to get good shots, and very hard to get great shots; but that might just be me. Here’s a nice shot I managed to snag, a Great-billed Heron. You hardly ever see these guys. As the name suggests they are big-ass herons. Very little is know about them, I’ve heard that you get one per river!!!
November 23rd, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Sweet shit bro. Its good to know that my hard exam study period is being balanced out by others doing sweet FA.
You little turtle friend looks like a dude, weren’t tempted to keep him and turn your SW tank into a new home for the mini-Dennis Rodman turtle?
Oh and your B/W self portrait also looks a bit pixellated to me. Might be our monitor.
But I don’t think Ansel Adams had such technological technicalities.
November 24th, 2005 at 6:35 am
Great-Billed Heron
Daintree River, Queensland, Australia
Dawn stretches
from a single color:
charcoal from balsam,
blue to the grace that draws
nineteen cervical vertebrae
in a liquid line.
Edges of wings that once
held back a longer sky
smooth crests of hills
and now in landing tuck
and fold the wind away.
He hides in the open.
Obvious. Evolved.
Waits like dignity,
disappears only to frogs,
fish. They see one leg
still and think rush
or reed:
nothing fearful.
Water whorls spin
slowly inside and out
behind the slight
obstruction of his leg.
Slack water, the canvas
of unsteady waver. Meander.
Swell. The slight wave curls,
small tongue. Fixed breath
then stab
stiletto and no splash.
by Bill Yake
November 24th, 2005 at 9:59 am
That was taken by karin, then emailed to me… it’s a little smaller.
November 24th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
Go Kiki! That’s awesome, pass on my congratulations, please.
November 24th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Sweet, O?
November 24th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
yeah, how cool is that?! she only applied to see what they said when they rejected her, so she was amazed when she got an interview, and then they contacted her to say they’d love to have her, and have adapted the initial project proposal to incluse stuff she’s interested in! still waiting for the official paperwork but should be no worries..
I’m flat out trying to get everything finished, which is a growing mountain with obsticals creating vicious circles; eye infection = break glasses. sore knee = sore back. working on uni stuff = not getting paid to work. perfectionist = essays never finished. late essays = panic and carelessness. panic = stress. stress = eye infection, sore back, late essays, panic, um, eye infection, panic and stress = feel sorry for self and can’t be bothered, eat icecream and watch Australian Idol final/CSI Everywhere/movie-already-seen instead of working on late essays.
= stress about late essays! (and angry at bad TV). Aaaaarrrgh!
November 24th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
and, before Tom beats me to it: cry when a bug gets on me. (”GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! GET IT OOOOFF!!!”)
November 24th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
= house even more messy than usual
November 24th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
oh, did anyone follow the ‘just be me’ link above, and read down on “it’s not your camera that matters”? ah, hello -
“Jesus Christ’s dad Joseph built a masterpiece of a wooden staircase in a church in New Mexico in 1873, and does anyone care what tools he used? Search all you want, you’ll find plenty of scholarly discussion but never of the tools.”
um, how old exactly was Joseph when he build this staircase?! lets say he was at least 20 years old when he had JC, and JC was at least 30 when he got famous and we started counting years AD.. that would make old Joe 1923 YEARS OLD, and still sprightly enough to travel to mexico, no airtravel for you. who cares what tools he used to build a staircase, why the fuck hasnt he been speaking up over the past 2000 years of theological debate! I mean, he was there, he could have cleared a few things up along the way….
November 24th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
The Lord works in mysterious ways, Zoe.
November 25th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
ahahah, seems to work for me. think it’s because you had a whole lot of text in your comment. It was held for moderation, I approved it just then, you should be able to see it now.