"The William and Mary of Orange of birding"

... is how Graeme Gibson and Margaret Attwood described themselves on their appointment as joint Honorary Presidents of the Rare Bird Club of BirdLife International.

Ramona Koval, the host of ABC Radio National's Book Show, interviewed them on their love of birds. The audio (about 35 minutes) and transcript are available here. I'm not sure for how long they will be available, so get on to it quickly.

Here's a taster.

Ramona Koval: I am thinking of it. I'm also thinking of another bird that has a bad press which is the vulture and I'm thinking about the poem that you wrote about the vulture. Margaret, would you like to read it?

Margaret Atwood: Yes, I'll say a couple of words about vultures before I read it, just in their defence because of course they're not, as you say... you may not feel cosy about birds but amongst those birds, you probably feel even less cosy towards vultures. There has been a crisis amongst the vultures in India which has caused a crisis of another kind because if the vultures do not eat carrion, if they're not there to eat dead things, of course you're going to get an abattoir type of situation. It was discovered that the cultures were being killed off by a certain kind of antibiotic that was being injected into livestock which the vultures would then eat and it was fatal to them. So you had a sudden die-off.

BirdLife International has now discovered the cause of that and is working with India to get a less fatal antibiotic put to use. So they're making a bit of a comeback. But it's things like this...we do things without having any idea of what the side effect is going to be, and there's a knock-on effect because kill the vultures and you've got another whole problem. That's my little vulture speech and now I'll read the vulture poem. If I were a 19th century poet I would be writing poems about nightingales and skylarks, but not being a 19th century romantic I write poems about vultures.

Hung there in the thermal
whiteout of noon, dark ash
in the chimney's updraft, turning
slowly like a thumb pressed down
on target; indolent Vs; flies, until they drop.

Then they're hyenas, raucous
around the kill, flapping their black
umbrellas, the feathered red-eyed widows
whose pot bodies violate mourning,
the snigger at funerals,
the burp at the wake.

They cluster, like beetles
laying their eggs on carrion,
gluttonous for a space, a little
territory of murder: food
and children.

Frowzy old saint, bald-
headed and musty, scrawny-
necked recluse on your pillar
of blazing air which is not
heaven: what do you make
of death, which you do not
cause, which you eat daily?

I make life, which is a prayer.
I make clean bones.
I make a grey zinc noise
which to me is a song.

Well, heart, out of all this
Carnage, could you do better?

Happy Hogswatch

My Christmas list:

• Friends.
• Food.
• Wine.
• Stack of books.

What have I missed? Oh, that's right, seasonal nuttiness.

From the Times Online (The original piece contains spoilers.)

The BBC has provoked controversy over a Christmas Day Doctor Who special that uses religious imagery to depict the Time Lord as a “messiah”.

…

Russell T. Davies, the writer and executive producer of the revived series, said: “The series lends itself to religious iconography because the Doctor is a proper saviour. He saves the world through the power of his mind and his passion.”

Stephen Green, of the evangelical group Christian Voice, said: “The Doctor would have to do a lot more than the usual prancing around to be a messiah. He has to save people from their sins.” But Malcolm Brown, director of mission and public affairs for the Church of England, said: “Science fiction at its best helps to illuminate eternal themes, and that’s something the Church can happily work with.”

I'm confused. Does Green think the Doctor is not up to scratch as a messiah and wants him to try harder?

Happy Hogswatch, one and all! Ho ho ho!

Work has finished for the year. Well, I still have to mark a handful of supplementary exams. And write up a new course. But apart from that, it's finished.

I'm about to head off on the Christmas circuit so I'll be posting intermittently. I would have left earlier but the weather has been quite lively. Last year, it was bushfires. This year, it's rains of Noachian intensity. (Please adjust for hyperbole.) That's life in the temperate SE, I guess!

LOLslugs!

A leopard slug (Limax maximus enjoying the rain.

Might I recommend ...

... The Digital Cuttlefish.

Humour, pathos and cephalopods — all in verse. Really, what more could you ask?

A tangled web ...

There was a Redback on the toilet seat when I was there last night.
I didn't see him in the dark but, boy, I felt his bite.

Slim Newton

Just about every garden in Australia has a collection of redbacks (Latrodectus hasselti Thorell 1870). The spiders might not be obvious but they're around, lurking in brickwork, woodpiles, letter boxes and dunnies. My redbacks favour the bell-shaped cover for the water meter. But when I checked it today to take a portrait shot of the big female that usually lives there, I couldn't find her. I don't know whether she's shuffled off this mortal coil or just shuffled off to find a cooler spot for summer.

Redbacks and their relatives are notorious for their venom, which contains the neurotoxin α-latrotoxin. Their habit of hanging around houses increases the likelihood of encounters with humans.

Their affinity for human habitats had allowed them to hitchhike around the world in cargo. Combined with their uniform appearance — one black and red Latrodectus looks much like another — this eight-legged diaspora had led to confusion. Is Species A different from Species B? And is it really native to this location? So what about Species C, clever clogs? You didn't consider that one, did you? Ha! No one expects the Spiderish Inquisition.

Sorry.

For a while, it was thought that Australia's beloved redback might have been an overseas ring-in. Levi (1959) regarded it as Just Another Black Widow (L. mactans) but other workers were not so enthusiastic about lumping the species.

That Thorell did not describe it formally until 1870 raised suspicions. A species with such a strong association with people should have been spotted sooner, were it native. Because it was first recorded from Australian ports, perhaps it been brought in by ship? Was it a holidaying New Zealand katipo* (L. katipo)? Or had Levi been correct and it truly was JABW? The plot thickened …

The conundrum was solved in 2004 when Garb, González and Gillespie examined molecular evidence. Latrodectus fell into two distinct groups — the geometricus clade and the mactans clade.

The first includes the brown widow (L. geometricus), which has been introduced to many locations (I've collected them in Townsville), and L. rhodesiensis from southern Africa.

The second clade is made up of black and/or red species, including our redback. So what does the analysis say about it? Well, it's not closely related to the black widow or any other North American species so we can cross those off this list. (The study also confirms that Levi was a bit too keen in lumping everything into L. mactans.) It is, however, the sister species of the katipo from across the Tasman. (But — just to make it a little bit more complicated — there are two species of katipo*, which are presumably more related to each other than they are to the redback. That means the redback is sister species to the katipo clade … Oh, let's move on.)

So the suspicions about the redback's origin were not correct. Just as well, because we need to keep up our catalogue of home-grown venomous fauna. How would it look if it were revealed that we'd imported one of the best known?

There is one more twist in this story. As suspected, the redback is an accomplished traveller but it hasn't come into the country — it has headed out. It is now established in several localities, including New Zealand, where it occupies inland areas. Endemics and invaders rarely meet though, because katipos live on beaches and among associated dune vegetation.

If my garden redbacks reappear, I'll post a picture.


References
Garb, JE, González, A & Gillespie, RG. (2004). The black widow spider genus Latrodectus (Araneae: Theridiidae): phylogeny, biogeography, and invasion history. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 31: 1127 – 1142. Abstract.

Levi, HW. (1959). The spider genus Latrodectus (Araneae: Theridiidae). Transactions of the American Microscopical Society 78: 7 – 43. First page.
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* PDF files <300 KB

Not long until Christmas*

Christmas isn't a big deal in the Snail Shell but I do enjoy other people's outdoor decorations. I don't mean the odd string of fairy lights along the guttering or a small tree in the window. I'm talking complex tableaux that incorporate every yuletide theme up to and including the Dr Who Christmas special. (Okay. I haven't yet seen a tinsel-bedecked TARDIS on someone's lawn but I feel it's only a matter of time.)

The most entertaining displays I've ever seen were up in North Queensland where one house owner would construct two-storey scenes in fairy lights. The themes were not Christmassy — they usually depicted a major event from that year. His illuminated interpretations of the Olympic Games and the Bicentennial celebrations were loved by all. The Gulf War … not so much.

Here's a corner of the first display. I couldn't get a photo of the whole garden because someone had parked a car right in front of the house. I must go back to find out what's under the blue wrap. Any guesses?


_____

* Not the most imaginative title, but accurate, I think you'll agree.

Prints preview

I ignored the pile of work on my desk and caught up with some friends today. We drove to Castlemaine in central Victoria to have lunch with Rhyll Plant and view her latest exhibition at the Falkner Gallery in Templeton Street. The works on display are part of her collective nouns series.

Rhyll prints from woodblocks. Because she's a biological illustrator, her work is not only beautiful to look at, it's also accurate. And it's full of puns.

I was immediately drawn to the molluscs, of course. The slugs in this work are the introduced veronicellids, Laevicaulis alte, which are common along the eastern and northern coasts.

A gross of slugs

12 x 12 in silvery slime

Rhyll carves the designs onto rounds of wood, which are not always perfect. What happens if there's a great big hole in the piece that appeals?

A tangle of hares

The exhibition runs until 27 January. The Falkner Gallery is open Thurs – Sun, 11 am – 5 pm.

The Grauniad's recent article on Philip Pullman included this lovely quote:

His editor of 25 years, David Fickling, says: "He is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, and he's right here among us, writing now. It's like having Thomas Hardy about to write Far From the Madding Crowd. It's just thrilling to be around."

I bet I'm not the only one whose mind wandered down the path to Python …

COMMENTATOR

Hello, and welcome to Dorchester, where a very good crowd has turned out to watch local boy Thomas Hardy write his new novel, "The Return of the Native", on this very pleasant July morning. This will be his eleventh novel and the fifth of the very popular Wessex novels. And here he comes! Here comes Hardy, walking out towards his desk. He looks confident, he looks relaxed, very much the man in form, as he acknowledges this very good natured bank holiday crowd. And the crowd goes quiet now, as Hardy settles himself down at the desk, body straight, shoulders relaxed, pen held lightly but firmly in the right hand. He dips the pen in the ink, and he's off! It's the first word, but it's not a word — oh, no! — it's a doodle. Way up on the top of the left hand margin is a piece of meaningless scribble and he's signed his name underneath it! Oh dear, what a disappointing start. But his off again — and here he goes — the first word of Thomas Hardy's new novel, at ten thirty-five on this very lovely morning, it's three letters, it's the definite article, and it's "The". Dennis.

DENNIS

Well, this is true to form, no surprises there. He started five of his eleven novels to date with the definite article. We had two of them with "It", there's been one "But", two "At"s, one "On" and a "Dolores", but that of course was never published.

COMMENTATOR

I'm sorry to interrupt you there, Dennis, but he's crossed it out. Thomas Hardy, here on the first day of his new novel, has crossed out the only word he has written so far, and he's gazing off into space. Oh, oh, there he signed his name again.

DENNIS

It looks like "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" all over again.

COMMENTATOR

But he's...no, he's down again and writing, Dennis, he's written "B" again, he's crossed it out again, and he has written "A" - and there is a second word coming up straight away, and it's "Sat" … "A Sat" — doesn't make sense — "A Satur" … "A Saturday" … it's "A Saturday". And the crowd are loving it. They are really enjoying this novel. And it's "afternoon", it's "A Saturday afternoon", a comfortable beginning, and he's straight on to the next word. It's "in" - "A Saturday afternoon in" … "in" … "in" … "in Nov" … "November". November is spelled wrong, he's left out the second "E", but he's not going back, it looks like he's going for the sentence, and it's the first verb coming up — it's the first verb of the novel — and it's "was", and the crowd are going wild! "A Saturday afternoon in November was", and a long word here … "appro" … "appro" … is it a "approving"? … no, it's "approaching" … "approaching". "A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching". And he's writing fluently, easily, with flowing strokes of the pen, as he comes up to the middle of this first sentence. And with this eleventh novel well underway, and the prospects of a good day's writing ahead, back to the studio.

Python MP3 file from the Thomas Hardy Resource Library.