For one night last month the city was incandescent. Plain surfaces - coloured with light - some buildings working like a child's kaleidoscope. Illuminations, shadows, projections - everywhere lamps working to hold back the night.
Before electrics the world would have been dark through the night. Properly dark but for the moon. Still darkness would have stood close to houses separating interiors and domesticity from the nocturnal doings of owls and bats, moths and monsters. The world would have been thick with shadows and the richer for stars.
Melbourne's one White Night was a magic lantern of entertainment - a reminder of the precious commodity that is light - and the large chunk of life called night.Visited by hoards - by children and adults alike - I hope it visits us again.
After the heat and people, the walking and wonder I was reminded of an excursion M and I took to see a colony of glow worms. We left the city after work and drove 3 hours to the coast - made camp, ate dinner and then drove again into the darkness to a thickly wooded piece of bush. Pulling on jumpers and mittens and bringing a blanket from the back seat of the car we were excited, cold, expectant. Then I realized we had left the flashlight in the tent back at camp. Too late and too tired to turn back - hand in hand with only a matchstick sized key light we walked the pitch black path into the forest. After 10 minutes or so our eyes adjusted and we saw the first spot of light. A half hour later everything was aglow.
Some memories illuminate our future, lovely post, wish I had been there to share your glow worm adventure.
ReplyDeleteWhen you come to Victoria, Carole we will go adventuring. I will have some nice places to take you. We will go exploring, bentos in hand and etegami supplies in backpacks. Prolly a dog or two at foot or rather underfoot.
DeleteThe lights display pictures are beautiful. Being diurnal creatures, we often forget about the amazing creatures that come out at night. Seeing the glow worms sounds magical. Would love to see that someday. What time of year did you go? We look forward to seeing the ctenophores in the estuary in late summer here.
ReplyDeleteThanks so Tammy. I think our glow worm excursion was late Winter or early Spring. I remember it being early dark and cold.
ReplyDeleteI saw Sir David Attenborough's documentary on New Zealand glow worms in the Waitomo Caves. That was amazing just to see on video. I looked it up. The scientific name is Arachnocampa luminosa. Are your glow worms in the same genus, but a different species?
ReplyDeleteLove David Attenborough! Gabe our son was raised on his documentaries and last year got a chance to see him on stage as he talked about his extraordinary life.
DeleteI don't know the taxonomy of the glow worms. I remember though that they are in fact a laval stage of a wood or fungal eating fly. You are sending me back to my field guides. Always a lovely place to be.
Well Tammy it seems that the glow worms Mark and I saw are Arachnocampa richardsae. Lovely that the spider like ability to produce sticky silk is referenced in their name. I had forgotten about the threads strung between them like necklaces. Strangely, I just read that the NZ variety hang vertically, while ours are horizontal hunters. They are actually in instar of gnat which feed on fungi -- not a true fly as I mistakenly called them above.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. The difference in the direction in which the glow worms hang is interesting. I wonder what other differences there are like that. Now I feel like watching David Attenborough. My husband found some of David Attenborough's old black and white episodes of "Zooquest". He must have been in his 20s or 30s then, which was really interesting to watch, as well as his more recent shows.
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