Amazingness

Morna Road (7), London, SE5

As I walked out one morning,
Walking down Morna Road,
The roofs upon parked cars,
Were ice-bergs with frosty nodes.

And down behind some houses,
I found a grassy patch;
To my surprise, a daisy
With delicate frost attached.

“My name is Hoarfrost,
Forever I will grow,
Whilst the ground is so cold,
And the air is so moist,

Whilst the night sky is cloudless,
And the wind is asleep,
From gas to solid,
Directly I leap.

Although it’s a common mistake to make
I didn’t form from dew,
Instead I skipped that liquid phase:
Straight from water vapour I grew.”

But the earth is rotating,
The sun will soon reach you.
‘O let not Time deceive you,’
Warmth will fast destroy you.

It was late, late in the morning,
The sun was shining brightly,
The sky was blue and beautiful,
And the frost had gone politely.

Poem inspired by, and a tribute to: As I Walked Out One Evening by W.H.Auden

Wyndham and Comber Estate, Redcar Street, London, SE5

It turns out that grass is actually rather difficult to eat. One reason is that the blades contain a gritty compound called silica, the same stuff that is found in sand, and used to make glass. It is a very hard, abrasive substance, and functions as a line of defence against being eaten, as it wears down the teeth of animals that chew it.

But of course we know that lots of animals do eat grass – horses, cows, sheep, buffalo and gazelles to name a few – so how do they deal with the wear and tear on their teeth on a daily basis, considering the fact that if their teeth become totally worn down, they’re unable to keep eating and will die as a result?

Simple! Through the evolution of long teeth, which continuously grow (or erupt) throughout their lifetime; thus, despite being constantly worn away, they are perpetually replaced. Brilliant!

Therefore, in order to find out if pigeons eat grass, it is necessary to ask whether they have long teeth. Do they? No. (Incidentally, pigeons don’t have any teeth, and they do eat grass seeds).

However, this is not the end of the story. It’s all very well for animals to have evolved long teeth in order to chomp and chew to their heart’s content; but grasses don’t want to be munched to death. Moreover, they aren’t munched to death. But why not?

Grasses (and there are a lot of different and very important grasses – rice, wheat, bamboo, sugar cane, little tufts of common urban grass like this one here) grow from the base of their stems, as opposed to growing from their tips which is the case in other plants. This ingenious adaptation, that evolved in response to grazing animals, means that grasses can be feasted upon, or mown down, yet they’re still able to keep growing.

I like the symmetry here: teeth and grass both wear each other down, so both have developed a similar adaptation – to keep growing out from their respective bases. The result: they are both able to successfully flourish in each other’s company.

Warner Road (4), London, SE5

Or, if you’re from Canada or the USA…Where’s Waldo?

If you can’t find him, here he is!

Morna Road (6), London, SE5

It seemed like no time at all since I’d been gazing out into the darkness of the daytime, excited by hail noisily battering my windows, the whistling wind whipping up the trees, and lashing rain streaking sideways at a 45 degree angle from left to right.

But gradually I noticed it had grown quiet, and was beginning to get lighter. So out again I looked, and this marvellous sight I saw.

It somehow confounds my sense of gravity. The whole expanse of sky, almost totally full of thick, threatening grey cloud, which suddenly stops, low on the horizon, with a clearly delineated and totally straight horizontal line.

Of course all clouds are very heavy; they are made of water which is surprisingly weighty. In fact, the water droplets inside a medium-sized fluffy white cumulus cloud weigh about the same as eighty average elephants. Yet they float gently about, as if light as a feather.

But this grey cloud seems particularly solid and heavy, and it has such a well-defined edge, whilst the sky beneath appears so bright and weightless. What invisible forces are holding it in place?

At a very basic level, the formation and evolution of clouds is due to the invisible interplay between warm and cold air, atmospheric winds, atmospheric particles, and water vapour. All these things are in a constant state of flux. Indeed, it only took fifteen minutes before this grey cloud fluxed about to not only reveal more patches of bright blue, but fluffy white sections too, and my sense of gravity was restored.

Sanford Walk (3), London, SE14

Last night I watched a documentary called ‘Afterlife: The Strange Science of Decay‘. It followed the processes of decay that occurred when a variety of foodstuffs were left out in a warm, humid kitchen, over the course of two months. Whilst delightfully disgusting at times, it was also genuinely fascinating and sometimes extremely beautiful.

Moulds, slime moulds, flies, fungi, more flies, beetles, and foul smells all played a vitally important role, transforming sandwiches, uncooked meats, fruits and vegetables from one manifestation of molecules to another.

All old life is reborn into new life. We may find it repulsive to behold, but the processes that decay one organism and recycle its constituents into another are essential to the workings of our planet.

Unfortunately/luckily I currently have no mouldy food at home, so have revived this photograph I took a year or two back, of something extraordinary discovered in a fridge… something that used to be baked beans.

I highly recommend watching the program (it’s on BBC iPlayer until 5th Jan), and I wish everybody a happy manifestation in 2012.

Crawford Estate, Lowth Road, London, SE5

Whilst humans go about their daily lives, scurrying in and out of their big brick buildings, here, amongst this delicious leaf litter, there is a whole community of little animals living where these large and unexpected mushrooms have burst forth.

Snails, woodlice, earwigs, millipedes, beetle larvae, fully-fledged beetles, slugs, earthworms…all manner of minibeasts abide here. Many are intent on doing the very important job of munching up dead leaves, as well as any dead animals they come across, in order to begin the vital process of recycling nutrients from the dead stuff, back into the soil, ready to be remade into new leaves and other growing parts. These little animals are called detritivores.

Others, such as spiders, carnivorous beetles and centipedes, spend their time importantly munching up the detritivores to keep their numbers in check. Luckily there are such things as birds, lizards and shrews to return the favour.

Village Way, London, SE21

Glowing copper in the late afternoon sunlight, the crown of this enormous, beautiful, leafless tree makes me want to stand on my head, and imagine it as a clump of earthy roots just pulled from the ground.

Camberwell Road, London, SE5

What is it that this inviting mound of soft, fresh moss could possibly have in common with a bulgy-eyed, bouncing frog?

Well, most importantly, both mosses and frogs are dependent on an external water supply for that elemental necessity: reproduction. Frogs need shallow water in which to lay their frogspawn, so the emerging tadpoles can happily swim about, and mosses need splashing raindrops to transport their sperm from a male plant to a nearby female one.

Another thing is that mosses breathe through the surface of their leaves – i.e. their ‘skin’ – and so do frogs!…although frogs additionally have lungs, which mosses do not.

Now for a couple of things in which mosses and frogs are not so alike:

Mosses don’t need to eat anything. Like nearly all other green plants, they make their own food from carbon dioxide that they find in the air, water, and sunlight. Incredible! Frogs, on the other hand, have to have proper meals, where they eat actual food, just like we do.

Mosses can’t jump.

…and, just to be confusing, there exists something called a Vietnamese Moss Frog (click on the first photo you see when you open the link). Is is a moss or it is a frog?

Champion Hill Estate, London, SE5

On my way to the supermarket this did not exist. To be precise, the paving stone did exist, but it had no such beautiful pattern on it. But darkness arrived on my way home, and I was able to experience the happy result of a street light being placed right next to a relatively short tree.

Unlike shadows produced by sunshine during the day, this will not move from west to east. It will remain exactly where it is until morning, save for a bit of a flutter in the wind or a brief engulfment by the shadow of a passing body.

Some other things that only come out at night:
Most Owls
Stars
Vampires
Hedgehogs
Father Christmas
Bats
Badgers

Champion Hill, London, SE5

The first thing I noticed about this wall was the clump of fresh green moss bulging out from one of the cracks. It was only on closer inspection that I gradually became aware of the gorgeous and subtle spectrum of colours that reside here, both growing, and being grown upon.

Consequently, I have been giving various pieces of wall and fencing more than a passing glance today. It turns out that there are a lot of them out there that could really benefit from a long and lingering gaze.