Jen Downes Photography: woodland

Saturday, February 10, 2024

The Year of the January Green

Brodie Road Wetlands, from the roadbridge

Superb Fairywren at Onkaparinga Wetlands

Roo family at Onkaparinga Wetalnds

McLaren Vale area

Australian native bee at the Ironbarks, Kuitpo

Flinders Ranges

Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens

Gleeson Wetlands, Clare

Nangawooka

Something so extraordinary happened that it's worth blogging about. This ... Never ... Happens. I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I've been ransacking my memory for any other year in which the South Australian landscape was green as County Cork in January, ten days after the summer solstice ... and I can't remember any other time. There was a year (1971 or '72, I can't quite recall) when it drizzled until shortly before Christmas, but by New Year the hills were baked brown and the catchments were half empty, as usual. This year? Well --

This never happens. Except, apparently, in an El Nino year with some weird dipole values and a heck of a lot of monsoonal activity in the north and east. Put it all together, and you get a cool, sometimes misty, and rather wet summer for us, which translates directly into ... green. And I have to say, I like it. A lot. The climate could settle into this pattern and stay right there, if it were up to me...

Sunday, January 28, 2024

In the Misty Mountains...

Alligator Gorge -- Mount Remarkable -- in January, 2023. Fog was the last thing we expected at the height of summer, in what is the "gateway to the Flinders Ranges," but as you drove up, and up, higher into the national park, you drove into a wall of mist. Birds called through the mist, sounding hollow and strange ... butterflies wafted on moist, chill air that was barely moving. No hint of sunlight, or wind, while sound was oddly muted. The forest seemed primordial. Wouldn't have been surprised to see a dinosaur appear from the fog!