Transient sunset beauty
Last night’s sunset was stunning, with wisps of pink cloud burning bright in the sun’s dying rays, and a deep blue sky. Would we be so taken with sunsets (and sunrises) if their beauty were not so transient?
These blue crabs look pretty scary, but they’re only about the size of the end of my finger. I didn’t even spot them initially while walking along mud flats at Ettalong at low tide — it was the plop-plop-plop of millions of tiny feet that caught my attention. The more I looked, the more I was astonished. There were hundreds of thousands of these things! For those of you of a scientific bent, they are Mictyris longicarpus (light-blue soldier crab) I think.
As the heading says, I’m glad they are small. And not looking for a fight!
The next two shots give an idea of the numbers:
This faceted globe of glass looks unassuming, but put in the path of sunlight and it takes on a whole new life. It throws rainbow shapes around the room (as in the feature image), and if I spin the globe I have my own private disco as the colours go whirling around.
As you can imagine, it was difficult to focus on these rays of coloured light. I quite like the “smeared” results, though!
I didn’t know whether to laugh at this young man’s foolhardiness or applaud his dedication. This is in Bouddi National Park, which is north of Sydney — stunning, as you can see, but not worth risking one’s life to capture a photo.
