You say Cicada.......

I say Cicada. Both pronunciations are in Macquarie's, of course. What the cicada is saying is "Let's get friendly", or similar. And in cicada language, that's an ear-piercing screeching drumming noise, and it's being said a lot around Sydney this summer.








Here's one I came across in the bush the other day. It had just moulted, and had emerged from its pupa state. It's an Orange Drummer cicada (Thopha colorata). Another abandoned cicada shell appeared on the wall at home the other day too. And a few years ago I came across a veritable army of shells marching up a tree trunk. (Actually I have to admit I remember rearranging them a bit for effect.)

Hornsby - our Tornado Alley?

In January 1991 there was a short, violent storm that swept through the suburb of Hornsby and wreaked havoc. Someone described that event on the radio this morning as a tornado, and given what happened there yesterday, he suggested there was a 'Tornado Alley' operating there.

When I searched the internet for the 1991 event, I found only the violent storm, no mention of the word 'tornado', except that there was in fact a tornado around then in Hornsby, Tennessee, and also one in Hornsby Bend, Texas.

Anyway, let's go with this 'Tornado Alley' idea. Our news media need to compete with the bigger and better tornadoes that just killed several people in the US, and indeed the massive typhoon last week in the Philippines, which killed thousands and made millions homeless, and which is still the real natural disaster story of the moment. 

The local media certainly made hay with our little tornado today. Hornsby was crawling with camera crews this morning as I inspected the damage and the clean-up operations. The reporter/camera operator from the ABC distinguished himself by being particularly territorial towards me  I thought. Clearly jealous of the fine work being done by Sydney Sapiential photographing the damaged cars in the station car park, he rather rudely plonked his camera right in front of mine, and pretended I wasn't there. (ABC, lift your game, you're dealing with the big boys now!)

I'd just passed through Hornsby yesterday, and was on my way down the Pacific Highway to Pymble when a bit before 3pm a there was one of the fiercest downpours I've experienced. Visibility was shocking, and the traffic slowed to a crawl, but there was no hint of any wind. When I first heard the news of the collapsed roof at the Westfield shopping centre movie complex, I assumed it was just due to a drain blockage and water build up. But news trickled in about a swathe of damage - trees down, roofs wrecked, cars upturned or squashed under other cars, and a demountable cabin at the station, turned on its side with six people inside it. 

It turns out there was a 50m wide path of destruction, 2km long, passing through central Hornsby via the shopping centre, the library, the Hornsby Inn, the train station, and the TAFE campus. And it's been officially declared by the Meteorology Bureau to have been a tornado, rather than the 'possible mini-tornado' we were hearing about yesterday.

Sculptures by the Sea

October and November bring not only jacaranda flowers. There's also Sculptures by the Sea. Regular as clockwork these days, and just as scenic.

You have to make your way to Bondi Beach and walk the kilometre or two along the clifftop walkway to Tamarama, via Marks Park. You encounter over a hundred fabulous sculptures, all with a message to tell.

Not that you'll always figure out what the message is. The poster of the iceberg, "coming to a beach near you" is presumably a comment on global warming. Lots of washed up things, transparent boats, and tents on rafts, all implying to me a comment on asylum seekers and their plight. There's a collection of beehives, with miniature human dwelling units inside. There's a skeleton cycling up a narrow beam with a boulder strapped to his back, likely to fall off the end when he completes his mission. There's a pretty blue whirly thing on Tamarama Beach, entitled 'Look at Me'.

There's a big circular collection of red or yellow 'swim between the flags' flags. But the central zone is all red flags for danger.




All self-explanatory, I thought. But lots of the other works would have benefitted from me purchasing the catalogue, I guess. Next year I'll do that, and I'll find the time to spend a whole

day there, or at least time it so I avoid the enormous crowds, schoolkids especially. It's been quite a success story, the Sculptures by the Sea. Check it out.

Jacaranda time

It's Jacaranda time in Sydney again. Perhaps the most scenic time of the year. Mind you, it seems to be coming a little earlier each year. I used to associate jacarandas with November, maybe starting in late October. But this year the season was underway right from the beginning of October. Winter was unusually hot, and dry too. We've had very little rain for over three months.

You used to see a lot of Illawarra flame trees planted alongside jacarandas. They made quite a spectacular colour combination. The flame trees have a bit of a bad name these days, what with invasive roots and irritating seeds, and I'm not seeing so many. There again, maybe the jacarandas have got ahead of themselves, and the flame trees will flower after they've gone.