letting nature back in

Back in the suburbs after our travels, we still have the transcendent sky.  Paradoxically, as it arches above us, out of reach and sublime, it also reconnects us to Earth.

Even in the city, glimpses of the sky can return us to the rhythm of the turning Earth. I have read that long-term prisoners when eventually released from prison are initially overawed by the sky, the sight of wide horizons free from being obscured or denied by bars, fences, walls and containment. The eye has to adjust to distance that is unconstrained.

Flying high and free, two crowned eagles ride the air

We are fortunate to live in a suburb on the edge of town. Our short road is surrounded by a timber plantation. Although planted mostly with exotic eucalyptus trees, it does provide a haven for a resident pair of crowned eagles.

The plantation also means that at night we look out onto darkness (even when the lights are on in the absence of the current load shedding, the rolling blackouts across the country when there is insufficient capacity for the power grid to supply the nation). The relative darkness in our suburb accentuates the sunsets as there is little distracting light in the neighbourhood. All of the photos in this post were taken over the past few years from our garden.

Sunset sky with plantation forming the level horizon beyond our garden

Tree structures against an evening sky

The nests of village weavers in fever trees in our garden in luminous evening light

I managed to catch the edge of a pink cloud as it passed over the rising moon early one evening

A flawless blue sky provides a seamless backdrop to an acacia tree, which is just coming into flower. I think this is an Acacia nilotica (now named Vachellia nilotica). Sadly, this tree blew down in a storm two years ago, uprooting completely at ground level

Not that it needs much encouragment, an immaculately blue sky provides this hadeda ibis, perched on our roof, with something to crow about

I just like this snapshot of a village weaver with wings spread against the sky as it collects leafy twigs to line its nest

These scudding clouds are unusual. Even though the sky is not the colour of a brindled cow, these clouds still make me think of the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem Pied Beauty

Some days in summer there are slow builds of cumulus clouds against the blue sky

There are days when the cumulus clouds precede the gathering of darker storm clouds

Unusually ominous and billowy clouds loom above the house late one afternoon before a storm

The beginnings of another dramatic storm – the trees are already being buffeted by the wind

And finally, I took this photo of an unusually striking sunrise earlier this year from our bedroom window. I don’t usually have the presence of mind to take a photograph before I’ve had my first coffee, but there was something that morning that made me pick up my camera

I realised later that strangely enough, this sunrise was on my mother’s birthday – the first birthday since her death last year when she died two days before her birthday. Coincidentally, last year I photographed the sunrise from her window the day after she died. I posted that photograph here.

Posted by Carol