The Mystical Dendenong Ranges and other stories

The Dandenong ranges are located just about an hours drive Eastwards from the City of Melbourne.

The area is a horticulturists paradise! Which does explain why there were so many plant nurseries, bonsai nurseries, gardens of all sorts and fertiliser vendors all over the place.

Mist.....thicker than the Beijing fog! This along with the winding mountain roads made driving a bit scary at times

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils

There were Lots of unknown flowers like this one, even in the winter.

A green flower, looks like a variety of Euphorbia.

More Unidentifiable flowers and plants

Huge Gum trees!! makes you feel kind of ............... small.

?? Not sure what this was all about

A Crimson Rosella

A Laughing Kookaburra. There were plenty of these around but none came so close as to get a good shot. Why is it called a Laughing Kookaburra you may ask, well in that case you haven't heard the Kookaburra's call. Unfortunately I couldn't catch one on video for your listening pleasure so you'll have to have a listen here.

I wish more birds would sing like that!!

There are some very interesting aboriginal stories built around the Kookaburra. On Saturday night I read that aborogines in the area had this story that the Kookaburra's loud call is a request to the sky people to light up the mighty fire that lightens up the world. And sure enough the next day I heard the Kookaburras going on about something before day-break, and what do you know before long the sun was up!

A puffed up Australian Magpie

Ruby! One of our very friendly hosts for the night

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... a local lunch!

The William Ricketts Sanctuary

One of the renowned gardens & parks in this area. William Ricketts was a sculpture/ artist who was inspired by the spirituality among the aboriginal people.

It is said that the aboriginals have (more so had) a very close connection with mother nature, instead of fighting nature and overcoming it, the aboriginal people knew that the best way is to live with the nature in harmony.

This lead William Ricketts to do his bit to let the word spread. Therefore his sculptures depicted aboriginal figures blending in with the soil and the trees and the rest of mother earth.

A man with two lyer birds on his shoulders

Mother Earth

Thun Sithaka Raavaya

And to top off the great weekend, we got to listen to some intoxicatingly beautiful voices.

Dooooowili.................

This was not really in the Dandenong ranges, but it's not often that the diaspora get to listen to this kind of thing so didn't want to miss this!

The unforgettable Apple mala

Thun Sithaka Raavaya taking leave from the stage.

They didn't forget to sing all my favourites.........which was quite a lot!!

Typical day with machines

Through the eyes of a wild animal: Part 2

Our general idea of an eye is a round white ball with a black circle in the middle of it. However not all animals have this kind of geometrical arrangement. One example you would be most familiar with is the cats eye, which takes an elongated oval shape during the day time. But you probably wouldn't have come across some of these unusual pupil shapes that I've got below.


Most of us know the cat's version of the story. These cute fur balls have eyes that are able to see in dark conditions, increasing their sensitivity to light. Thus to protect their eyes from the glare of the sunlight during daytime the pupils contract to a mere thin vertical line. And if you see a cat lying around with droopy eyelids with that typical 'don't care' attitude, it's nothing more than trying to protect his eyes!


Next time you visit New Zealand, you can directly look in the eye of a local and see if this is true. Sheep and even horses (below) have a horizontally elongated pupil, increasing their field of view to around 290 degrees. Again another adaptation for a animal of prey.


I have no idea why these beasts have got a bean shaped pupil, the elongation is probably to do with being the hunted party.


Look at those heavy eyelashes! Would work very well for a mascara advertisement!!?
Seriously, the square shape is a very uncommon shape in nature. The heavy lashes are to protect their eyes against sand storms, but square pupil?? no idea.


That shape looks quite funny, but that bump in the pupil is to give the hippo the ability to see out over the surface of the water. So he can keep himself half immersed in his luxurious bath and gaze out over the water level.


The magnificent horse has a blind spot directly in front of it, so even if he can see a wide field of view, the image will have a dark slit at the front.


This half circle can be rotated. So when the deer is grazing the hemispheric pupil will come down, keeping level with the horizon.

I must mention that I borrowed these pictures from this site (what with all these allegations of photo theft going around in the blogosphere!) And if you do like to know some more interesting stuff about how frogs, birds etc use their vision you will find them here.

Through the eyes of a wild animal: Part 1

The location and structure of the human eyes enable us not only to see how long and wide an object is but also to see how far away it is from us and how thick it is. If we had 2D vision (like what you get when you close one eye and look through the other) we would still be able to see objects clearly but judging the distance would be a problem, so we would look rather clumsy trying to grab things that are further beyond our reach.

So for this reason nature has decided to give the natural predators/ carnivores the ability to see in 3D. Or else finding something to eat would be quite a challenge! Thus most of the predators have their eyes located at the front of their head, a feature of 3D or stereoscopic vision. So think of the big hunters like the tiger, cheetah, leopard, lion (lioness rather), wolf, hawk (more or less), bear, owl etc. all of these have their eyes located at the front of their heads. This gives them the ability to judge the distance to their food and pounce upon it at the right moment.




awww.......... purrr

And what about the prey? the hunted? Well, as far as they are concerned they would rather prefer to have the ability to scan a wide area than be able to see in 3D. Because ill judging the distance to the grass patch is not going to be fatal, but not being able to see the hunter creeping up from behind is! Therefore most of the hunted animals have their eyes located on either side of their heads giving them access to a panoramic view. Deer, antelope, horse, zebra, goat , sheep, buffalo and the like. These animals can only see in 2D, but they have a wide field of view almost close to 360 degrees enabling them to spot any suspicious activity around them.


Eyes focused on the grass


But of course nature is pretty diverse. And there are very many types of visionaries and all of them can't be categorised into these two classes. But at any time in your life if you do find some unidentifiable wild animal charging towards you, and if it has got its eyes at the front of its head, you are in deep trouble!

And what about us humans? does this mean that we are born predators? Well I'm not an expert in natural history but if you ask one he or she would probably argue that this has to do with humans being descendents of apes, if you believe in Darwin that is (the natural historian not the blogger). So for our predescessors it was vital to be able to judge the distance to the next swingable tree branch (I just made that word up I think). So we humans inherited the 3D vision due to this reason.


So you could say we were born to be Tarzan!