Arrival …

The lovely Gayle and I flew into Jacksonville, the largest city in the contiguous United States. By area that is, and of course, that depends on where the lines are drawn on the map. The metropolitan area has a population of about 1.6 million people.  That’s considerably more than Miami proper with a mere 400,000 but if you throw in the rest of the conurbation – Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach you’ve drawn a line around 5.5 million people. So which gets to be state capital, Jacksonville or Miami? Neither, it’s Tallahassee with a smaller population than either.

Anyway you will be pleased to know that Jacksonville has recovered well from the Great Fire of 1901 which started as a kitchen fire , spread to Spanish Moss in a mattress factory. In just eight hours, it swept through 146 city blocks, destroyed over 2,000 buildings, left about 10,000 homeless and killed seven.

During the silent movie era it was the centre of the film industry but then Hollywood came along.

Hurricane Matthew made itself felt in 2016.

We didn’t stay long in case something bad happened. It seems ill-fated.

The truth is we were picked up by friends and whisked away to the beautiful St Simons Island over the border in Georgia. They have a really fabulous house backing on to a lake.

Whilst having breakfast the next morning we could see this guy without getting up from the table!

I guess a swim is not on the agenda.

As beautiful as the house is all the light switches are up side down. How odd.

The New World …

‘He didn’t discover America he invaded it’: Protesters now rally to REMOVE statue of Christopher Columbus from Manhattan after NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was under review as a ‘symbol of hate’                        The Daily Mail.

As an Australian heading for the New World one of the first things to strike me is that it’s not all that new. By the time Captain James Cook found the east coast of Australia in 1770 Columbus had found an island near the east coast of America (1492), the Mayflower had deposited the Pilgrim Fathers in Massachusetts (1620) (an event that captured the American imagination far more successfully than the first English Colony at Jamestown, Virginia founded 13 years earlier) and about 2 million colonists had followed them. The struggle for independence was underway.

On the 4th of July six years after Cook named Point Hicks America declared its independence. The loss of America may well have been the catalyst for British settlement of Australia in 1788.

Indeed, so ancient is the New World that the Scots were founding colonies in North America prior to Union with England in 1707.

Australia, as a country rather than a bunch of colonies, dates from just 1901. It’s brand new.

Although I must point out that both continents were inhabited long before our European explorers put them on Europe’s map. Wouldn’t want the blog to be considered a symbol of hate. And just for completeness let’s add that neither of these great explorers were the first Europeans to reach the respective land masses. History can be so fickle.

Just imagine those heady days of pride and optimism. Days when we could celebrate the 4th of July or the 26th of January or erect statues to our heroes.

Obliterating history doesn’t change it – just makes it harder to learn from. Civic pride seems so much more constructive than communal self loathing.

Road Trip …

Coming soon …

From south to north. 1,297 miles. I maybe running into some fall colors as I go. Expecting temperatures in the south of around 86°F dropping to maybe as low as 50°F overnight in the north.

As you can see I’m practicing the language, could be bilingual by the time I get back.

Surfing moral panics …

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.        Edmund Burke (1729–1797).

Mal Brown was kind enough to comment on my recent post regarding our little Australian constitutional crisis, in part saying “ … I didn’t know Britain doesn’t have a constitution. What caused that anomaly ?”

It’s not an anomaly – it’s the proper way to do it! Admittedly it is unusual, there are few other countries that have not adopted a written constitution, New Zealand, Israel and Canada are among them.

So in the absence of an overarching document what does Britain have? Tradition, and some documents and ordinary acts of parliament. The system by which Britain is governed has grown as it has gone along. The general trend since Magna Carta was agreed between King John and a few rebellious barons in 1215 has been to diminish the power of the monarchy, increase the power of the Parliament and to make the parliament accountable to an increasing proportion of the population.

Lord Denning (1899 – 1999), the greatest English judge of modern times, described Magna Carta

as the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.

But despite the great Charter’s great fame the Bill of Rights of 1689 is actually more important. This followed a real constitutional crisis, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which a group of parliamentarians invited William of Orange to overthrow King James ll. William became King but was obliged to

solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereunto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same.

In other words The Bill established the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown. It also provided “for the regular meeting of Parliament, free elections to the Commons, free speech in parliamentary debates, and some basic human rights, most famously freedom from ‘cruel or unusual punishment’” to quote Professor Robert Blackburn who goes on to outline what is in my opinion one of the greatest strengths of the British system …

There are a number of associated characteristics of Britain’s unwritten constitution, a cardinal one being that in law Parliament is sovereign in the sense of being the supreme legislative body. Since there is no documentary constitution containing laws that are fundamental in status and superior to ordinary Acts of Parliament, the courts may only interpret parliamentary statutes. They may not overrule or declare them invalid for being contrary to the constitution and ‘unconstitutional’. So, too, there are no entrenched procedures (such as a special power of the House of Lords, or the requirement of a referendum) by which the unwritten constitution may be amended. The legislative process by which a constitutional law is repealed, amended or enacted, even one dealing with a matter of fundamental political importance, is similar in kind to any other Act of Parliament, however trivial its subject matter.

Edmund Burke would be pleased.

So the Poms today are governed by the House of Commons, they can vote for a candidate of their choice if they so desire, the House of Lords acts as a house of review but its powers are much less than formerly, the Queen is an expensive ornament that presides over a continuing soap opera for the chattering classes and signs whatever parliament puts in front of her. The first past the post voting system ensures that there is usually a majority government or as Richard D North quaintly put it the constitution …

enshrines a prejudice against the mob. It is designed to eliminate any serious danger of direct democracy, and is instead a system for selecting and controlling a governing elite (the parliamentarians). A plebiscitic democracy, perhaps ushered in by the silicon chip, would, in one sense, be merely the last step towards democracy, but, in another, the first towards popular rule. But direct democracy risks the perpetual excitement of surfing moral panics, or the tedium of living in a Swiss canton.

Cold comfort …

… What a pleasant life could be had in this world by a handsome, sensible old lady of good fortune, blessed with a sound constitution and a firm will

Wrote Stella Gibbons in Cold Comfort Farm (published 1932). The heroine of the story is sponging off the welfare of others  and I learn from Wikipedia that …

each of the farm’s inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred, or fear, and the farm is badly run.

Sounds remarkably like the Australian Federal Parliament.

When I last wrote about our little constitutional difficulty the damage was largely confined to the Green Party. I happened to read one of the alt right web pages that I frequent to help reinforce my prejudices, I think it was The Australian. In the comments the overwhelming response was serve the bastards right. Lack of due diligence on the part of Green Senators, was of course no surprise, Watermelons are by definition stupid or they wouldn’t be Watermelons. No one seemed to notice that the Australia Constitution holds the contradictory provision that the Head of State will be a foreigner whilst no Australian parliamentarian can be even remotely tainted by otherness.

Since then the disease has spread a little wider and the only party not yet infected is the Australian Labor Party. Perhaps they have been more diligent in going through the motions of shedding alt citizenships.

Since my very erudite post on the issue there has been very little in the way of enlightening discussion of the underlying problem. However today at one of the ultra left wing sites I visit to counter my right wing bias, I have a chip on each shoulder, I found a good article by Michael Collet. You can read the whole article at Your ABC.

Mr Collett has gone to the trouble of visiting the debate that led to the wording in Section 44. (Or at least he has read an unspecified  “expert paper” which makes an appearance part way through the article). From him we learn that Sir John Hannah Gordon, a South Australian delegate to the Australasian Federal Convention that drafted the constitution, wanted to make a provision for naturalised British subjects but was shouted down. Significant responses being …

You cannot have two allegiances.  Patrick McMahon Glynn.

He may be minister of defence.  Sir George Turner.

It is worth remembering that this debate occurred in the latter half of the 1890’s, about a constitution that would determine the future for British subjects in Australia, between people who were in the main recent migrants to Australia and which led to the election of a parliament that contained a good proportion of people who would today fail the Section 44 provisions. Australian citizenship did not come into existence until 1949.

Notions of citizenship have changed significantly since the debate. In the 1890’s the sun never set on the British Empire, you might be a British Subject born far from Britain itself but you shared in that wonderful fellowship of belonging to the Empire. We might now think of citizenship as a commodity that is useful to us, our ticket to live somewhere, in the 1890’s British Subjects were a commodity useful to the Empire. It owned us.

There was no contradiction in disallowing the naturalised subjects a place in parliament because it didn’t rule out any of us, only the French and other foreigners.

And what of allegiance? If it’s that significant then sending a couple of your friends to the Iranian Embassy with a piece of paper saying “I renounce thee, I renounce thee, I renounce thee.” doesn’t cut it but does satisfy the High Court. Even if a second citizenship is surrendered it might still be the case that we have more of an issue with a foreign power, China for example, buying influence from our politicians.

Is it true that you cannot have two allegiances or even more? A patriotic Australian, a good catholic, a feminist and a Collingwood supporter. What if your committment to a particular religion or political ideology outranks your commitment to your country? What if the sign by the roadside says “You are in Wadawurrung country” when you thought you were in Australia? Ah, the imponderables.

As much as I enjoy anything that causes our execrable politicians discomfort I think our constitution is flawed. It seems that the bunch of migrants that put it together couldn’t envision a future when our migrants might not be British Subjects like themselves. It is an insult to those citizens by choice, like me.

I am proud of my British Heritage and I think that Australia has benefited enormously by adopting much of that heritage. We can’t blame Britain for the constitution though … they don’t have one. Well not a written one. Smart that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I now belong to a higher cult of mortals, for I have seen the albatross!” – Robert Cushman Murphy, 1912.

Murphy, ornithologist, ecologist, conservationist, was writing to his wife from the whaling brig Daisy in the vicinity of South Georgia. He describes the Albatrosses “Lying on the invisible currents of the breeze” which beautifully portrays their flight in light airs but it’s when the wind rises to a gale that I find them most impressive. When your hands are clasped tightly on the ship’s rail and you hope your pyloric sphincter will maintain an equally strong grip on your gastric contents, the Albatross passes elegantly by demonstrating a complete mastery of its elements. I saw my first Wandering Albatross just outside Sydney Heads and I remember it well.

The Albatross family is one of the four (extant) families making up the order Procellariiformes. When you go to the seaside you encounter numerous seabirds, gulls, cormorants, and gannets for instance, but most of them don’t venture too far out to sea. The procellariiiforms are true ocean goers, they may spend years at a time without coming ashore something that they usually do only to mate.

To get amongst them you have to go to sea. This weekend I did exactly that sailing about 30 nautical miles south of Port Fairy to the edge of the continental shelf.

Shy Albatross

The largest albatrosses are the Wanderers and the Royals but they didn’t put in an appearance this time out. The largest on this occasion were the Shy Albatross. They were present in good numbers and not at all shy. Slightly smaller and rather more numerous were the Black-browed Albatross …

Black-browed Albatross

The black margin on the underwing is broader, the bill a different colour. They come in two subspecies (full species according to some) which can be distinguished by the colour of the iris, yes you do need to get reasonably close. One has a dark eye, the other is honey coloured, both were present.

Smaller still is the Yellow-nosed Albatross …

Yellow-nosed Albatross

Sea birds tend to be black, white, gray or combinations of black, white and grey! Diagnosis has its challenges. Albatrosses are actually the easy ones.

All the procellariforms have tubes leading to their external nose. If you look at the top close up of a Shy Albatross you can see that there is a small nostril on the side of its beak. The Albatrosses all have two quite small nostrils, in all the other families that make up the order the tubes merge into a single opening on top of the beak.

The four families are :-

  • Family Procellariidae (shearwaters, fulmarine petrels, gadfly petrels, and prions)
  • Family Diomedeidae (albatrosses)
  • Family Hydrobatidae (storm petrels)
  • Family Pelecanoididae (diving petrels)

and at least one member of each family turned up. Here are a few of them …

Grey-faced Petrel
Southern Giant Petrel
Fairy Prion

Volcano Envy …

Australian landscapes are ancient, the heady days when rift valleys tore Gondwana apart, and sea floor spreading propelled its fragments around the globe are long gone. It’s hard to imagine a Mt Nyrigongo popping up and obliterating Adelaide. And I do so miss her warmth, the twinkle in her magma and her sweet sulphurous perfume.

But the reality is that western Victoria is littered with volcanoes. It’s just the timing that’s out of kilter.

Ken Grimes, of the Hamilton Field Naturalists Club has written a very nice paper on the subject which you can find <HERE>.

In the Western District there are mainly three types of volcano, though combinations of these also occur. About half of the volcanoes are small steep-sided scoria cones built from frothy lava fragments thrown up by lava fountains. Most of the remainder are broader but flatter lava volcanoes formed from relatively gentle flows of lava welling out of a central crater. A group of about 40 maar craters
near the coast formed from shallow steam-driven explosions which produced broad craters with low rims. These now often contain lakes.
These are the New Volcanics, they started about 5 million years ago. The most recent eruptions occurred about 5000 years ago. They seem to have occurred about every 5000 years so we may be due. According to Ken they erupt for a few weeks or months and never again, the next eruption being at a new site.
Melbourne University’s Professor Joyce anticipates that the next eruption would be “the sort of thing that would be interesting for tourists”. I’m sure it would, and Dr Lin Sutherland of the Australian Museum reassures us that
… no panic is needed. It probably would be a small discharge and a temporary nuisance, rather than the large eruptions we see in the Pacific ‘Rim of Fire’.
This assumes that it isn’t a Phreatic (15 points, more if you can get it on a double or triple word square) eruption. Boil one cubic meter of water and you have 1,600 cubic meters of steam. If magma comes into contact with ground water the result is an explosion. Such
explosions crush the overlying rocks and launch them into the air along with steam, water, ash and magmatic material. The materials usually travel straight up into the air and fall back to Earth to form the tephra deposits that surround the crater.
Thus producing a maar, these are usually a few hundred to a thousand meters in diameter and less than one hundred meters deep. Nothing to panic about.
Tourists do enjoy them but not until they’ve settled down a bit! My favorite is at Tower Hill near Port Fairy, incidentally this vicinity is high on the list for the next eruption.
It’s probably about 25,000 years since it went bang. It is now a very attractive game reserve, home to koalas, emus and kangaroos. Interestingly, you can’t take your dog there but during duck season you can take your gun.
Koala – Tower Hill
Emu – Tower Hill
Eastern Grey Kangaroo – Tower Hill

So there you have it … photographic evidence of life on maars.

Stranded …

A story that was recently in the news is worth a review.

You can read it at PerthNow where you can also watch a film clip. To summarise, a couple travelling on the Canning Stock Route, one of Australia’s more demanding 4WD tracks in remote Western Australia got bogged and weren’t able to get their vehicle out.

So they reached for their satellite phone, well no they didn’t, no mention of a satellite phone. So they separated and set off walking. Worked well enough for the girlfriend, she walked into a campsite where she was able to raise the alarm. The search started on Friday morning, the boyfriend was found on Sunday …

The Perth man who almost perished in the WA outback has credited skills he learnt on Bear Grylls TV shows for his survival.

Anthony Collis says he ate flowers and bugs during the three days he spent lost in the Pilbara.

The press run this sort of story every chance they get, if I’m ever rescued from the bush I am going to say I survived by eating spiders. It raises the game to a whole new level. He didn’t survive by eating bugs and flowers, he survived despite eating bugs and flowers. Going without food is very uncomfortable but it would take him three or four weeks to die from starvation. He was intending to travel quite a distance up the track, there are no McDonalds on the route so surely there was food in the ute.

How long you can last without water is another issue. It could be just a few hours of heavy exercise in the hot sun, probably three days in shade rigged by the ute, a week at room temperature in comfortable surroundings. And, surely there was more water in the ute than he could carry.

It is winter and it was difficult to keep warm. So Mr Collis buried himself in the sand just like Bear Grylls did in his show. An unexpected side effect of that was to make him invisible to the heat seeking device the police, in their helicopter, were using to locate him.

As always the starting point for the search was the car. Had he been there it would have been a very short search. He wasn’t there. He was three kilometres away. What is the point of being three kilometres away?

You can bury yourself just as well at the car, we know the sand was soft, the car was bogged in it. Three days, three kilometres. It defies logical explanation.

Good preparation for a 4WD trip includes a means of communication, some self rescue equipment, water and food. Both of these people are lucky to have escaped with little damage. Caroline Grossmueller wasn’t so lucky.

It’s a pity that Bear Grylls didn’t tell them to stay with the vehicle, I guess that doesn’t make for spectacular TV.

McGee  … not bogged

Rakali …

After Africa it’s harder to keep the dopamine flowing. No lions, no leopards, the only primates are wearing clothes and driving cars. But still life has its little surprises. Like this guy …

Hydromys chrysogaster

The latin name translates as water mouse with a golden belly. Lots of species are blessed with the name chrysogaster, it fits the Orange-bellied Parrot much better than this rat.

Its name was changed from Water Rat to Rakali to improve its image.

It is a rodent and it is native to Australia and New Guinea. It lives in rivers, lakes and sheltered marine bays. They’re quite omnivorous but prefer animal food when they can get it. They’re nocturnal when it’s warm enough for them but in Victoria in winter they feed during the day.

Which is how I came to find this one in Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree, yes this is the rat from Ballarat. It is quite widespread as you can see from the distribution map which I have shamelessly filched from Wikipedia …