Patterns in Nature: Trees
The January 2022 Mailbag contained an item to test your visual detection skills and many people have corresponded with great frustration. I do understand as I admit I could not find the second tawny frogmouth in the Casuarina tree sent in by A in Oakleigh. I cheated in the end and phoned for some clues!!
Jane has sent in the photo (below) with the two tawnies circled. And it is really interesting to ponder why many of us couldn't find the slightly camouflaged bird.
I think we tend to look for something that is approximately the shape of a bird (as is the obvious one). But the tawnies are so clever they can make themselves look like the bark on a tree trunk. Isn't nature just wonderful.
Every day I go for two walks with Gypsy my 17 year old poodle. We go very, very slowly and nearly always the same way. And so I have plenty of time to take in the scenes around me which are pretty familiar but never fail to please me as I live on the side of a hill peppered with beautiful gum trees.
I am unashamedly a lover of gum trees -the Australian Eucalyptus. Like in all families there are a few specimens that are a bit scraggy but most gum trees are towering edifices of grandeur - I warned you that I am in love with them!
I love the grace of their composition but also the tips on the edges of the leaves where Mother Nature touched them delicately with her brush.
But yesterday I didn't look up into the branches but directly into the trunks of these magnificent creatures.
Zooming in closer, the patterns on the trunks are intricate and the colours subtle. No one shape the same, no colour or tone exactly the same. I would love to have a palette that Mother Nature has prepared!
Look around you. Look up. Look Down. Look Closer.