My Catfish Friends

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:28:20 GMT

]]>My granddaughter wanted to stop and see the little painted turtles at the bridge at Gillies Hill and when we approached they got nervous and slipped under the lillipads to her disappointment......however, shortly thereafter, while i was waiting for them to reappear Laura wandered to the other side of the bridge and exclaimed "Look at the fish Grandpa!". To my surprise she had located a school of at least 3 dozen Catfish(I think these are Flathead Catfish sometimes called Mudcats) spread out in a line eating insects at the surface....whenever a car passed over the bridge or when we spoke to each other too loudly they dived below the surface only to cautiously reappear a few moments later.

Just a note about what they eat......Catfish have a diet that includes other fish, aquatic bugs, crayfish, mollusks, fish eggs, aquatic plants, minnows, snails, decaying vegetation, carrion, worms and leeches.

Read more: What Do Catfish Eat?

Music: "Turtlerock"....by Kevin MacLeod

Wishflower

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:35:52 GMT

]]>I set out to look into the micro-world of one of the most common plants around us in nature and here are 33 photographs i took. This is my attempt to see for myself why people think flowers are superb in their beauty and weeds like the "Wishflower" are a blight on the landscape.
The first few shots are from the outside just as anyone would see this plant as it is encountered against the blue sky. Then i took a series of photographs shot from above against the green grass in bright sunlight and finally I continued to move deeper and deeper inside the seed-head of this delicate plant. In the last series of shots i placed a chromed steel bar on the ground by the plant and the sunlight was reflected back up through the plant and blasted my camera's sensor from light to darkness. This backlit the delicacy of the seed-head itself.
What i saw was beautiful, delicate and of superb organization ....far more than i expected to see. I realised this was a very complex plant with an integrity that dazzled my eyes. When i think of the ordinary plants scattered virtually everywhere living self-sufficient lifecycles and thinking that flowers were chosen and singled out for their "rare beauty".... I now feel that that choice was made without merit. It makes me wonder how the world became such a mad place. What drove us to say a plant that we can find no use for is of no use .... this makes no sense to me.
In a superlative irony nature embraces the things that we reject and seems to cherish this plant for its ruthless beauty, deceptive delicacy and obdurate vigor. Indeed it seems that what is outside our favor holds a unassailable place inside hers......that its beauty pleases nature is without question.

Music by Kevin MacLeod....thanks Kevin!

Dave Waddell's Photography: Featured Galleries and Collections

My Catfish Friends

Wishflower